If you’re not taking the time to clip YouTube videos, you’re missing one of the easiest ways to boost reach, re-engage your audience, and grow without recording anything new.
Clipping lets you quickly turn one long-form YouTube video into multiple short, shareable clips. Shorter videos perform well because they’re easier to watch, share, and surface in YouTube’s algorithm.
In short, clipping a YouTube video is the fastest way to go from a long video to short video that performs better in YouTube’s recommendation system.
Clipping a YouTube video means taking the most engaging moments from a long video and creating short clips that are easier to watch, share, and discover.
Think of it as repurposing your best content into sharable, high-impact moments. One 30-minute tutorial or one hour podcast can become multiple YouTube Shorts, each attracting new viewers and reminding your existing audience why they subscribed.
To clip a YouTube video, you can use YouTube’s native Clips feature or a YouTube video clip cutter like vidIQ Clipping. The biggest advantage of clipping is that you don’t need to start from scratch. It’s far easier than creating brand-new videos, and with a tool like vidIQ’s, even the editing is automated. Just upload your video and let AI instantly transform your YouTube long video to short video clips that are ready to share.
Clipped videos aren’t just a time-saver, they’re a growth tool. Here’s where they shine:
Cross-platform reach: Post those clips on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn to hit audiences outside YouTube.
Not all long videos make great clips. When deciding which content to turn from a YouTube long video to short video, focus on formats that naturally break into high-impact moments that make sense on their own.
Tutorials and how-tos: Step-by-step content works well for clipping because each tip, step, or demonstration can stand alone. A 20-minute “How to Grow Tomatoes” guide might yield individual clips for “Choosing the Right Soil,” “Watering Tips,” and “Preventing Pests.” Each one delivers quick value and can link back to the full tutorial.
Podcasts and interviews: These are rich sources for bite-sized content. Pull the most thought-provoking questions, surprising reactions, or memorable quotes. A single guest appearance can give you a week of Shorts that tease viewers into watching the full conversation.
Event coverage and vlogs: Highlight the biggest moments such as a keynote speaker’s one-liner, the most exciting part of a performance, or behind-the-scenes footage. These clips give viewers a taste of the event’s energy and can drive them to explore your longer recap.
Product demos and reviews: Showcase one feature, reaction, or problem solved at a time. Instead of watching a 15-minute review, a viewer might click on a 30-second clip showing “How This Camera Handles Low Light” and then decide to check out the full review.
Livestreams: Live sessions often contain valuable, unscripted moments that can be clipped into short, engaging videos. This might include Q&A segments, funny interactions, or key announcements that deserve a second life outside the full stream.
Webinars and presentations: Educational talks are perfect for pulling out single insights, statistics, or action steps. These shorter clips work well for reminding viewers of the value in attending the full presentation or watching the replay.
Listicles and countdowns: If your long-form video is structured as a list or countdown, each item can stand on its own as a quick, satisfying short. For example, “Top 5 Editing Hacks” can become five separate Shorts that each highlight one hack.
If you already have a library of long videos, you are sitting on weeks or even months of short-form content waiting to be repurposed.
You can clip other creators’ videos on YouTube using the platform’s built-in Clip feature, but that’s different from downloading their content or re-uploading it, which can violate copyright.
For growth, the safest (and smartest) play is to clip your own content. That way you own the rights, control the narrative, and build your channel’s library.
From YouTube Long Video to Short Video in Seconds
Repurposing content can be a time-consuming process, but vidIQ’s Clipping tool removes nearly all of the manual work. It’s the fastest way to create Shorts from YouTube video content you’ve already published. Here’s how it works from start to finish:
Traditionally, turning a YouTube long video to short video format required watching the full recording, marking timestamps, manually cutting footage, and reformatting it for vertical platforms. This process could take hours for a single clip. Clipping a YouTube video with vidIQ’s YouTube clip maker, condenses that work into a few clicks.
No manual searching. No guesswork. Just high-impact, shareable content pulled straight from your existing videos so you can spend more time creating and less time editing.
Log in to vidIQ and clip your YouTube videos into shareable Shorts instantly.
To clip YouTube video content means taking highlights from a long video to short video format. These clips are easier to watch, share, and discover on YouTube.
A YouTube video clip cutter, like vidIQ’s tool, automatically finds engaging moments in your long videos and repurposes them into short clips ready to post.
Clipping a YouTube video into Shorts increases discovery, re-engages subscribers, and lets you grow without recording new content.
Tutorials, interviews, livestreams, and reviews are ideal. Each long video to short video clip delivers quick value while pointing viewers back to your full content.
Darryl is a writer with years of experience in online video software, combining technical expertise with a passion for educating audiences. When not writing, he’s tending to his farm surrounded by horses, chickens, dogs, and somehow cramming more plants into his garden than it could ever reasonably hold.
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