Editing videos is arguably the most important process of creating content for YouTube. Not only is it the stage of the process that often defines the creative look and overall tone of the video, but it is also a process of finessing and removing mistakes. There’s nothing worse than spending a long time editing a video only to discover a mistake after you’ve uploaded it. If it involves significant re-editing, then you’ll have to go back into your editing software and export a new version as YouTube doesn’t let you replace videos in a link, but you might find it’s something that can be fixed with YouTube’s built-in editor.

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Why you should make YouTube videos

Creating videos can be both a hobby and a profession, and for some people it can be a very cathartic creative outlet. You might find you have a story to tell, or perhaps you want to support your business by creating video adverts for it. Whatever you decide to create, you’re bound to find an audience for it on YouTube.

Even with the advent of short-form mobile content platforms like TikTok, YouTube is still going strong as a destination for longer videos. Documentaries, adverts, vlogs, behind the scenes videos — whether you’re creating content about arts and crafts or how to train a dog, there’s always an audience waiting to discover new talent and channels to follow.

To make the best out of your YouTube channel, it’s worth investing time and energy into creating the highest-quality videos you can. There are a lot of creators on YouTube making excellent content, and even if your messaging is strong, having lower quality videos can put people off.

Using software like VideoStudio Pro will give you all the tools you need to create high-quality YouTube videos, with color filters, transitions, and music editing options too. It will give you complete control over your projects, but if you want to make amends to a video once it’s already been uploaded to YouTube, head into YouTube Studio.

How to edit videos on YouTube

YouTube Studio offers a function to remove sections of a video once it has already been published to the channel. Although it doesn’t give you anywhere near as much to play with as video editing software, it can help if you suddenly find a section of black screen somewhere in your video where you have forgotten to close up the clips.

It’s best to be as precise as you can and carefully watch your videos back before you publish them, but in an emergency you can use YouTube Studio to remove a section from a video without having to re-upload it or reshare it.

If you want to trim a video without reposting it on YouTube, open up YouTube Studio.

  1. Select Content from the menu on the left.
  2. Select the video you want to trim.
  3. In the menu on the left, select Editor.
  4. Select Trim & Cut. A blue box should appear around the video timeline.
  5. If you want to trim the start or the end from the video, simply reshape the blue box. Anything left outside it when you proceed will be removed from the video, shortening it at either the beginning or the end.
  6. To remove a section from the middle, select New Cut. A red box should appear inside the blue box. Reshape it by dragging it to the left or the right. This will be the section that you remove.
  7. Click Save.

Preview the changes you have made by pressing Preview, and if you know the exact timecodes of the sections you want to remove you can enter them.

Use VideoStudio Pro to edit your videos

It’s best to avoid the irritation of editing videos on YouTube after they have been published by keeping complete control over them to begin with. You can do this by editing them precisely in VideoStudio Pro, which gives you access to a complete set of professional video editing tools.

Use it to edit and trim your videos, add music, motion graphics and transitions, captions, and even color filters to give your footage a specific look or cinematic feel.

Use YouTube's editing tools for quick fixes only

YouTube is an excellent destination for videos today, and if you want to tell your stories outside of a 15-second timeline then it’s well worth making YouTube videos. Although YouTube does offer some basic video editing capabilities, letting you trim the beginning and end or remove the middle of a clip, it is always worth using video editing software to create exactly what you want and publishing it when you are completely happy with it.

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