A beginner’s guide to YouTube Studio, YouTube’s built-in video editor, which offers basic editing for free

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FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed YouTube icon is seen in front of a displayed YouTube logo in this illustration taken October 25, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Ilustration/File PhotoReuters

  • YouTube’s YouTube Studio (Beta) video editor lets you edit YouTube videos in very basic ways, such as trimming the start and end points of a video, or clipping out a section from the middle.       
  • You can also use YouTube’s editor to blur faces or other objects in a video to anonymize them.
  • If you need more sophisticated video editing capabilities, you can use a standalone video editor before uploading your video to YouTube. 
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

With about 300 hours of new video content uploaded to YouTube every minute, if you want your video to stand out, you need to perform at least some rudimentary editing. 

If you don’t own a video editing program, you can do some simple editing in YouTube’s own video editor, called YouTube Studio. It’s currently in beta, but offers a few simple video editing tools, like video trimming.  

How to open the YouTube Studio video editor

1. Navigate to YouTube in a browser. For best results, you should use Google Chrome, since some features may not work properly in other browsers. 

youtube 1Dave Johnson/Business Insider

2. Click your avatar at the top right of the screen and choose "YouTube Studio (Beta)."

3. Click "Videos" in the pane on the left of the screen. You should see a list of all your videos that you’ve published or drafted on YouTube. 

4. Click the title of a video you want to edit. 

5. Click "Editor" in the pane on the left of the screen. 

youtube 2Dave Johnson/Business Insider

How to trim the start and end of a video

1. Open the video you want to edit in the YouTube Studio video editor.

2. Click "Trim" under the video preview. 

3. Drag the blue bars on the left and right edge of the video timeline to set the start and endpoint of the video. 

4. In the bar at the bottom of the screen, click "Preview" to see the change. 

youtube 3Dave Johnson/Business Insider

5. You can continue to make additional changes — click "Edit Trim" to reenter the edit mode and then click "Preview" to make the additional change. 

6. When you’re done making changes to your video and want to save these edits to the published video, click "Save" at the top of the screen. Note that you can’t save your changes to a video until you first click the Preview button at the bottom of the screen. 

How to cut a section out of the middle of a video

1. Open the video you want to edit in the YouTube Studio video editor.

2. Click "Trim" or "Edit Trim" under the video preview. 

3. Position the vertical bar in the timeline where you want the edit to begin. 

4. Click "Split" in the bar at the bottom of the screen. 

5. Click on the vertical bar and drag it across the timeline to the end of the cut. You should see a dark region that identifies where the video will be cut. You can fine-tune the split by dragging the two bars in the timeline. 

youtube 4Dave Johnson/Business Insider

6. Click "Preview" to implement the change. 

7. When you are done making changes to your video and want to save these edits to the published video, click "Save" at the top of the screen. 

How to blur a person or object in the video

You can also use the YouTube video editor to blur elements in the video like faces or license plates. 

1. Open the video you want to edit in the YouTube Studio video editor.

2. Click "Add Blur" in the timeline. YouTube will open the old Video Manager, since this feature hasn’t yet been implemented in YouTube Studio (Beta). 

3. Click "Edit" beside "Blur Faces" or "Custom blurring." If you choose to blur faces, the app will automatically scan for faces and add blurring on its own. If you choose the custom option, you can draw boxes in the video to indicate where you want to blur, and YouTube will move the boxes around the screen to continue to cover the object even if it moves within the video.

youtube 5Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. When you’re done, click "Save" and then click "Return to YouTube Studio." 

YouTube discontinued more advanced video editing

Unfortunately, YouTube used to offer other video enhancements like the ability to rotate videos, edit the colors, tweak the lighting, and more, but these features have been discontinued. 

If you need additional video capabilities, you may want to use a standalone video editor and upload the completed video YouTube. Some recommended options include HitFilm Express and VideoPad.

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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Dave Johnson)

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