By Harpal Singh · · 6 min read
Search for video editing software for Mac and the results assume you have a pile of footage and want a film. That is one common job. The other, which is what a lot of people actually have, is a recording of a screen and a voice, where the thing to fix is a pause, a stumble and a button nobody could see. Those two jobs need different tools, and choosing the wrong one costs an evening.
This guide separates them and says which Mac editing software suits each.
Are you editing footage or a recording?
Footage is shot or collected: clips from a camera, a phone, a drone, some B-roll, a voiceover and music. You assemble it into something that was not one continuous take. That needs a general editor: a multi-track timeline, transitions, titles, colour, import from many sources.
A recording is one continuous take of a screen with narration, perhaps a camera bubble. The work is cutting the dead air, speeding up the waiting, making the clicks visible and exporting the right shape. That needs a tool that understands screens, and a general editor is more machine than the job calls for.
If you are not sure which you have, ask whether the video will be assembled from several separate recordings or shots. If yes, it is footage. If it is one continuous take, even with a camera bubble and a voice over the screen, it is a recording.
What are the main Mac video editors for footage?
On a Mac running an older Mac OS X release, the video editor for Mac OS X is whichever version of iMovie shipped with it, and the four below are the current choices.
- iMovie. Apple's consumer editor. It comes from Apple and is built for people who have not edited video before: drag in clips, trim, add a title, export. It is the simple video editor for Mac, and the video creator for Mac, that most people mean, and the answer to "easy video editor for Mac".
- Final Cut Pro. Apple's professional editor, with a magnetic timeline, colour and audio tools, and plug-in support. It is built for people who edit regularly, and it is native to the Mac.
- DaVinci Resolve. Blackmagic's editor, with a free edition. It combines editing, colour grading and audio in one application and is the usual choice when budget is the constraint and you are willing to learn it.
- Adobe Premiere Pro. A professional editor on a subscription, strongest when you already live in Adobe's other tools.
All four are good, and none of them knows what a click is. A screen recording imported into any of them arrives as a flat video. Zooms, cursor highlighting and the rest are things you build by hand, which is where the evening goes.
What do you use for screen recordings?
A recorder with its own editor, because it keeps what the recording knew: where you clicked, where the cursor was, how your microphone and the app's sound were captured.
| Tool | Built around | What the editing side does |
|---|---|---|
| QuickTime Player | Quick clips | Trims and splits clips; nothing screen-specific |
| ScreenFlow | A full editing suite on a Mac | Multi-track timeline, motion graphics, captions |
| Camtasia | Annotated lessons, on Windows too | Callouts, templates, captions, quizzes |
| Cap | Recording with automatic zoom | A local editor with zooms, backgrounds and captions |
| ReScreen | Demos and tutorials with automatic zoom | Split, trim, ripple delete, per-section speed, zoom blocks |
Each is described from its vendor's own documentation in the best screen recorder for Mac, by job.
What does the editor in ReScreen do, and not do?
It opens on the take the moment you stop, with zoom blocks built from your clicks. In the timeline you split at the playhead, set in and out points, keep or ripple-delete a range, change the speed of a section and mix the audio tracks. Zooms, cursor, camera and canvas are styled and previewed in the same view, and one video compositor draws both the preview and the export.
It is an editor for recordings made in ReScreen, and its limits are plain:
- It does not import other video files.
- It does not add titles, captions or music.
- It has no B-roll, transitions or colour grading.
If your video needs any of those, edit the recording elsewhere or use a general editor for the whole thing. A screen recorder with a built-in editor describes where that line sits, and the timeline editor feature page lists the controls.
How do you decide?
A good video editor for a Mac is the one that fits the footage, and the best video editing app for Mac for a beginner is iMovie. For everything else, answer the four questions below in order.
- One take of a screen, with a voice? Use a recorder with a built-in editor.
- Several sources, B-roll, titles, music? Use a general editor. iMovie if you are new, Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve if you will edit often.
- A screen recording with annotations, captions and quizzes? Camtasia is built for that.
- A film with some screen footage inside it? Record the screen in a screen recorder, export it, and edit the rest in a general editor.
The fourth is common and worth saying: the tools are complementary. Export from the recorder with the zooms and cursor already applied, and import the finished clip into the editor as one source.
How much of the edit can be done for you?
For a screen recording, a lot. Zooms, cursor and canvas can be generated; the human part is cutting the stumble, speeding up the waiting and deciding where it ends. How to edit screen recordings faster is a short workflow for that, and ReScreen vs ScreenFlow works through how much editor a screen demo really needs.
What about free and online video editors?
Searches for a movie editor, online video editing, a video editor or a free online video editor often lead to browser tools that edit your footage on a server. They are convenient for a short public clip and a poor fit for a screen recording, because the whole screen is uploaded with it, and a long 4K file takes longer to send than to edit. On a Mac the free route runs locally: iMovie is included, and DaVinci Resolve has a free edition. Edit video online only when the footage is public and the clip is short.
Video editing programs, software and apps are the same thing under different names, so the useful question is the one at the top of this guide: whether you are editing footage or a recording. A videographer editing client work will want Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve; someone making a tutorial wants the recorder's own editor. For anyone asking how to make an edit video from a screen recording, the shortest answer is to cut it where it was recorded, which is why mac video production software for screen work is mostly a recorder with a timeline.
Which export settings should you use?
Export the recording at the resolution and shape of its destination. For a website or a course, MP4 with H.264 at 1080p or 4K plays everywhere. For a vertical feed, choose a 9:16 canvas; export and presets lists the destinations. If you need an editing-friendly file, MOV from the same export suits most Mac editors.
When the video in front of you is a recording, see the timeline editor and download ReScreen for macOS.
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