Snitt
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Getting started

Getting started

What Snitt does, what you need, and the path from raw footage to an editable timeline.

This page covers the whole path: install the app, sign in, build a style profile, rough-cut your first shoot, and export it. Snitt works with Final Cut Pro today; support for more editors is planned.

Snitt measures how your published videos were cut, then rough-cuts your new footage the same way. It removes silences, abandoned takes, filler words, off-script moments and noise. You review the result word by word and finish the timeline in your own editor.

Before you start

You need a Mac on macOS 15 or later with Apple silicon and an account. Final Cut Pro is optional — it is where the timeline export goes. New accounts start with 10 hours of free editing credit.

An MP4 render is built in, so you can finish without an editor.

The first run, step by step

  1. Install Snitt

    Download the DMG, drag Snitt into Applications, and open it. The full version, including how updates work, is in install and updates.

  2. Sign in

    Create an account with your email and a password, or sign in with Google. A new email account gets a 6-digit confirmation code. Snitt needs an account before it can do anything.

  3. Create a style profile

    Open Style profiles in the top bar and click New profile. Name it after the creator whose style it holds — usually you. See profiles.

  4. Add a few published videos from your own channel

    Drop the files on the profile, use Add videos…, or paste a link with Add from YouTube…. Each row moves from Queued to Analyzing to Analyzed. A handful of videos is enough to start. See importing published videos.

  5. Or skip the profile for now

    Analysis runs in the background, and a project can be created at any time. A project started with No profile uses generic settings: every filler goes, and pauses stay as recorded.

  6. Start a project

    Go to Projects, click New Project, give it a name, and pick the profile under Cut in the style of. That choice is made once and kept for the life of the project. See starting a project.

  7. Add your footage

    Drop each file on the role it plays — A-roll for the takes Snitt cuts, External audio for a lav or shotgun recording to sync. Snitt never guesses roles. Every file is checked as it lands; click Start when they are all green.

  8. Wait for the rough cut

    A progress bar shows how far along the job is. You can keep working in the app while it runs, or close the window and come back. Review opens when the rough cut is finished. See processing.

  9. Review it

    You review the cut by editing the transcript. Cut material is struck through — click any strike to put it back. Delete a sentence and the cut follows. Accept or reject suggestions one at a time. See reviewing the cut.

  10. Export

    Press ⌘E to open the rough cut in Final Cut Pro, or use the Export menu to save the file instead or render an MP4. Your media relinks by itself, because it never moved. See exporting to Final Cut Pro.

How it works

Your Mac handles your media. It checks every file opens properly, syncs your external audio to the camera by matching the two waveforms, and reads what it needs from the footage. Playback and the MP4 render run here too, on your original files at full quality.

Editing decisions are computed on our servers, against the style profile the project was created with, and come back as a list of what to keep and what to remove. AI reads the transcript; every automatic cut is then made by a fixed rule. Judgment calls arrive as suggestions instead.

How your footage is handled is covered in our privacy policy and the terms.

Work is metered in minutes. Starting a job holds the minutes it might need; when the job finishes you pay only for what it used, and the rest of the hold comes back. Learning from your published videos costs minutes too: importing one is a job like any other, charged on the video’s length. See account and minutes.

If something goes wrong

Nothing works and the app asks you to sign in. Snitt has no offline mode. Sign in and everything comes back, including jobs that were running.

A job will not start. Two things stop it: not enough minutes, and too many jobs already running. The message says which. The minutes chip in the top bar shows what you can spend right now.

A file is refused at import. Snitt rejects a file only when it is badly damaged, and the message on the row says what it found. Re-export or re-download it and try again.

A job pauses. Everything already done is kept. The project card offers Resume, which picks the job up where it stopped rather than starting over.

More cases, with fixes, are in troubleshooting.