To clip a YouTube video, open it on YouTube, choose More (…) → Clip, select 5 to 60 seconds, give the clip a title and share it. A clip is not a new upload. It plays that section on a loop from the original video's page, and it lasts only as long as the original stays public or unlisted. Trimming your own upload or turning your own video into a Short are different jobs, covered at the end.
Create and share a clip
These steps follow YouTube's Clips help page for a computer. You need to be signed in.
- Go to the video you want to clip.
- Select More (…), then Clip.
- Add a title for the clip. YouTube allows up to 140 characters.
- Drag the slider over the section you want. A clip can be as short as 5 seconds and as long as 60.
- Select Share clip, then embed it, post it to a social network, email it or copy the link.
If you don't see Clip, the creator may have turned clipping off for their videos. A live stream can only be clipped when DVR is on, and clips made during a stream show up after it ends and is posted as a video.
A clip points back to the original video
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who can watch it? | Clips are public. Anyone with the clip can watch it, as long as they can also watch the original video. |
| Where does it play? | On a loop from the original video's watch page. |
| When does it disappear? | When the original is deleted or set to private, or if it violates the Community Guidelines. Clips of unlisted videos stay available. |
| Can it become a Short? | You can remix a clip if its source video allows remixing. The source video's owner can turn the whole clip into a Short. |
| How do I delete mine? | Under You, open Your clips, open the clip's menu and choose Delete clip → Delete forever. |
Illustrative sharing brief
Fits a clip: a colleague needs the 38-second explanation of export settings that starts at 12:04 in a 42-minute tutorial. Clip 12:04 to 12:42 and title it "Export settings explained".
Doesn't fit: they need the whole 90-second section. That's longer than 60 seconds, so send a link that starts at 12:04 instead.
Doesn't fit either: the colleague wants the 38-second explanation as a video on their own channel. A clip stays attached to the original video, so it doesn't add an upload to their channel. Only the tutorial's owner can convert the whole clip into a Short. The colleague can remix the clip into a Short of their own only if the tutorial allows remixing.
Authored teaching example. The times and titles are invented for illustration; no clip was created or measured.
Manage clips of your own videos
Clipping is on by default for your uploads. In YouTube Studio you can see and control what viewers make:
- See clips of one video: Content → select the video → Clips. You can play and share them, and see who made each one and its views.
- Turn clipping off: Settings → Channel → Advanced settings, then clear Allow viewers to clip my content and save.
- Limit specific people or words: add users to your channel's Hidden users list, or add words to your blocked words list so they can't appear in clip titles.
- Feature community clips on your channel: Customization → Featured sections → Add section → Top community clips, then publish. YouTube orders them by popularity and how recently they were made.
If "clipping" means posting other creators' moments on your channel
Some people who ask how to start clipping mean something else: cutting short videos from someone else's streams or uploads and posting them as their own uploads. A YouTube Clip doesn't do that; it doesn't upload a new video to your channel. Re-uploading parts of another person's video is a separate activity from making a clip.
- Copyright still applies to footage you don't own. YouTube says its copyright rules apply to reused content separately from its monetization review.
- Permission alone doesn't make an upload monetizable. YouTube's reused content policy applies even when you have the original creator's permission. It looks for significant original commentary, substantive changes, or educational or entertainment value, and it is applied to your channel as a whole. Read YouTube's monetization policies.
- This guide isn't legal advice and can't tell you whether a particular use is allowed.
Other ways to share or shorten a moment
| You want to | Use |
|---|---|
| Share 5 to 60 seconds of any video that allows it | A YouTube clip, as above |
| Send someone to a moment in a longer section | A link with a start time; see the YouTube timestamps guide |
| Remove the start, middle or end of your own upload | YouTube Studio's Trim & cut on a computer. It keeps the URL, views and comments and works on videos shorter than six hours. Since June 2025 a saved edit can't be undone, and unedited videos with over 100,000 views may not be editable unless the channel is in the YouTube Partner Program. |
| Turn a clip of your own video into a Short | As the source video's owner, convert the whole clip into a Short; see YouTube's Clips help above |
| Shorten your own recording before uploading | Your video editor; the video trimming guide covers start and end points |
If you're cutting your own talking-head or tutorial recording, Gling analyzes the footage for silences, filler words and bad takes, and you review its proposed cuts before you export. The pause-removal guide explains how to keep natural pacing when you do.
