Your first run
The first time you sign in, you confirm your email address and fill in a short form about you and your organization. You can change any of it later in Settings.
- Open your Library. It's the first screen after you sign in, with the box for a new video at the top.
- Paste a public or unlisted YouTube link. A preview shows the video's title and picture, so you can check it's the right one.
- Check the note under the preview. It says how many videos from your monthly allowance this run uses, for example This run will use 1 of your monthly videos.
- Use the chips under the link box if you want to:
- Look changes the style for this video only.
- Moments tells ReelUse a part you hope to see clipped.
- Choose the section picks the part of the video to clip.
- Audio reduces background noise in the speech.
- Length picks Short, Standard or Long clips.
- Tick I own this content or have the rights to process it.
- Press Make clips.
Every chip is optional. Look, Moments and Choose the section apply to this video only. Your Audio and Length choices are saved as your defaults for the next video.
On Free, the Look, Length and Moments chips show a lock. Look and Length come with Starter, and Moments comes with Growth. Clicking a locked chip opens the plans. Choose the section and Audio work on every plan.
Which links work
Paste the link to one YouTube video. Watch, youtu.be, Shorts, live and embed links all work. The video has to be public or unlisted, and it has to play in a normal browser tab.
- Private, members-only and region-locked videos can't be clipped. ReelUse has to be able to open a video to clip it.
- A link with a playlist on the end (
&list=…) uses only the video you linked. - A livestream has to have finished, and YouTube has to have finished preparing the replay. See Troubleshooting if one is turned away.
- The video has to be at least 5 minutes long, and at most 6 hours.
The rights checkbox
Before a run starts, you confirm that you own the video or have permission to clip it. Clipping someone else's video is what gets accounts and videos taken down. Anyone can use our takedown process against material they own.
If you or your organization recorded it, you're fine. If you're clipping a guest speaker, ask them first.
While it runs
The run appears under In progress with a bar in four parts: Transcribe, Find, Cut and Render. Under the bar, a line says what's happening now and how long is left. The card updates itself every few seconds. More in Runs and your library.
You can close the tab. The clips are made online, and we email you when they're ready. The first clip is usually ready in 10 to 15 minutes, and the rest follow as they finish. A very long video can take longer.
As each clip finishes, it appears under the bar with a Watch link. A Watch clips ready now button opens the finished ones while the rest are still being made.
What comes back
A set of clips, strongest first. Each one is cut, framed upright, captioned and styled with your Branding. Their length follows the Length you chose: Standard clips are up to 90 seconds.
The number of clips depends on the video. ReelUse never pads the set to reach a target. A video full of strong moments gives more clips than one that is mostly announcements. On Free, a video makes up to 4 clips. If nothing in a video stands on its own, the run says No clips found.
Each clip also comes with a post kit: a title, a caption for longer posts, a short caption, and any references or verses heard in the clip.
Working from your own file
The website takes links. To clip the original file on your computer, use ReelUse for Mac and Windows. It works from the file where it already sits, so clips keep full quality and none of the graphics a livestream puts on the picture.
When the app makes the clips on your computer, keep the app open until the run finishes. Its clips appear in the same Library as your website runs.