Auto-edit for TikTok in one click

Run Auto-edit for TikTok in the Editor Agent when a raw clip is on the timeline and you want three things done together: the frame set to vertical 9:16, a hook title over the open, and the dead air cut. That is the automation. It is not a caption burn, not a music bed, and not a publish.

Open the video editor on the web app. On a wide screen the Editor Agent sits beside the timeline by default. Put a clip on the timeline. Click Auto-edit for TikTok, or type the same instruction in plain words. Free edits land instantly. This one is a free edit. Anything that spends credits is shown as a plan and waits for your OK first. Captioning is that second kind of job. This is not.

The Android app is the same account on your phone. Record there if that is where the take lives. Do the cut on the web, where the agent sits next to the timeline.

What Auto-edit for TikTok actually does

The label is the contract. Auto-edit for TikTok does three moves and then stops.

Vertical 9:16. The output frame is TikTok-shaped. A landscape talking-head or a desktop capture will be reframed. That is the same destination as resize a video for TikTok, bundled with the title and the air cut so you do not run three passes. Reframing crops. It does not invent picture at the edges. If the product, the face, or the UI you were demonstrating lived on the left or right of a 16:9 frame, look at what survived.

A hook title over the open. The first seconds get an on-screen line. That line is a title, not a transcript of the whole take. It is closer to adding a text overlay than it is to captions. Read the words after it lands. If they are wrong, too long, or sitting on the mouth, change them.

Dead air cut. Silences, the stare into the lens, the gap after you said "um" and before the next sentence. A pause you meant — a beat before a punchline, a wait for a page to load, a look to camera that is the joke — will look like air. Check it.

Those three sit across Cut & arrange, Text & captions, and Canvas & brand. You do not have to open those groups. After the pass lands, trim, split, reorder, speed and transitions still work, and they are still free. Type any other instruction in plain words if this pass is not what you wanted.

When the one-click pass is the right first move

Use it as a first pass on footage that is already a take, not as a replacement for a script.

Raw talking-head. One person, one claim, recorded on a phone, some dead air at the head and between thoughts. This is the clip the automation is for. You get 9:16, a title on the open, and a tighter vocal. Then you watch it. If the take is already vertical and already has a card on the open, skip the automation and trim by hand. You will otherwise stack a second title.

Screen recording. A product demo, a tutorial, a walkthrough. Two failure modes are specific to this source. The crop: a 16:9 desktop capture shoved into 9:16 will lose the sides, which is often where the sidebar, the cart, or the URL bar sits. The air: a spinner, a page load, or a hover you wanted the viewer to see will register as silence. If the wait is the point of the shot, do not let the cut eat it. If there is no voiceover, the air cut hears mouse-up gaps and you get a choppy demo. Put a voice on it first, or cut by hand.

Imported post. In the Media tab, paste a TikTok, Instagram or X post link. You get a free preview card. Import costs 1 credit, refunded if the import fails. YouTube links usually cannot be imported because there is no downloadable file; the editor says so rather than charging you to find out. Once the file is on the timeline, Auto-edit for TikTok is the same three-move pass you would run on your own take. Use it when you are remixing a post you brought in, not as a substitute for watching the original.

Your own library — uploads, generations, music — shows as strips in the Image, Video and Audio tabs. Drag from Video. Do not run this automation on a finished cut with a title you wrote and air you already cut. You will get a second title and a second opinion about pauses.

What to check on the timeline after it lands

Play the cut on the timeline. Then click What's on my timeline? and read the rundown in plain words. The rundown is a check, not a second edit.

Frame. It should be 9:16. No accidental letterbox. Face, product, and any on-screen UI still in the picture. A chin crop or a cut-off laptop screen means the reframe picked the wrong centre.
Hook title. The words, the length, the placement. The first seconds of a TikTok carry platform chrome. A title sitting where the username or the caption will sit is a title nobody reads. If the line is generic, replace it with the actual claim. If you keep a Brand Kit, open the Brand Kit panel and apply your fonts and colours to that title.
Dead air. First word not clipped. Punchline still has its beat. Screen-recording waits still there if you needed them. A jump that swallows a name or a number is a bad cut, not a tight cut.
Duration and audio. A 40-second take that became 6 seconds lost the body. Voice still on the timeline. Nothing muted by accident.

If something is off, fix it with Cut & arrange or type the correction. Those are free edits. They land instantly. Do not move on to a credit job until the picture and the pauses are the ones you will publish.

A later, separate pass is checking a video before you publish it. This timeline pass is earlier: confirm the automation did the three moves you asked for. Do not caption yet. The cut is not locked.

Caption the whole cut, then balance the audio

Auto-edit changes the cut. Captions have to be burned onto the cut you intend to ship. Balance the mix after any music exists, before you freeze the picture.

Auto-edit for TikTok. Already done.
Timeline check and any hand fixes. Already done.
Optional: Score it with music. A generated music bed under the cut, ducked for voice. This spends credits. You see a plan. You OK it, or you don't.
Balance the audio. Voice up front, music under it. Click the label. It is a free edit. If you never added a bed, you may not need this. If you did, run it rather than riding the faders by ear on a laptop speaker.
Lock the picture. No pending bumper, no VO pickup, no extra clip you might still drop in.
Caption the whole cut. Burned-in subtitles across every clip. This spends credits. You see a plan. You OK it, or you don't.

The caption pass needs audible speech. A silent screen recording with no voiceover will give the transcriber nothing useful. Preview a style on the first few seconds before you caption the whole cut. Basic presets bill 1×. Dynamic presets — Glass is the default — bill 2× for the same transcription. Name a Basic preset when you want 1×. Output is an MP4 with captions burned in. There is no sidecar to nudge later.

The longer version of that job lives in Caption the whole cut in the agent. The editing-task door is add captions to a video. In the editor you already have the one-click label. Use that. Do not caption twice because you also opened the named job.

Order	Label	Lands as	Credits
1	Auto-edit for TikTok	9:16, hook title, dead air cut	Instant, free
2	Balance the audio	Voice up, music under	Instant, free
3	Caption the whole cut	Burned-in subtitles	Plan, then your OK

Score it with music sits between 1 and 2 when you want a bed. It is the row that is not free. Do not run Balance the audio hoping it will generate music. It mixes what is already there.

If you caption first and auto-edit second, the dead-air cuts take the cues with them. Trim first. Caption second. That rule does not change because the trim came from a one-click label.

When to cut by hand instead

Skip Auto-edit for TikTok when you already know the edit, or when one of the three moves would damage the take.

You know the in and out. Trim a video and stop.
You need to drop a flub, a tangent, or a swallowed line in the middle and keep both sides. Cut a section out of a video. Dead-air detection will not know which pause was a mistake.
The pause is the joke, the reveal, or the load. The automation will treat it as air.
The important picture is on the left or right of a landscape frame. A centre crop to 9:16 will lose it. Reframe yourself, or type where the subject is.
Several clips have to stay in a story order. Auto-edit is not a director.
There is no speech. A music-only cut, a silent product plate, a UI recording with no VO. Dead air logic has nothing useful to hear, and the caption pass that follows will fail for the same reason.
You already wrote the hook title and only needed a crop. A second title on the open is clutter.
You are not posting 9:16. A square feed still, a 16:9 YouTube cut, a LinkedIn landscape. This label is for TikTok-shaped output. Do not run it as a generic cleanup.

To cut by hand, stay in the Editor Agent and say what you want: "trim from 0:04 to 0:38, keep 9:16, do not add a title." Or use Cut & arrange on the timeline. Free edits still land instantly. The one-click label is faster when the default is what you wanted. It is slower when you then have to undo two of the three moves.

A talking-head with one flub in the middle is the usual fork. Auto-edit will tighten air around that flub and may leave the wrong words in. Cut the section out, then ask for 9:16 and a title as separate instructions. Use the one-click pass on clean takes. Use your hands on messy ones.

First pass on one real clip

Three actions. Do them on a take you would actually post, not on a test pattern.

Open the video editor. Put one clip on the timeline — an upload, a strip from the Video tab, or an imported TikTok, Instagram or X post.
Click Auto-edit for TikTok. Watch the cut. Click What's on my timeline? and read it.
If the frame, the title and the pauses are right, click Balance the audio, then Caption the whole cut. Confirm the credit plan before the caption render.

If step 2 is wrong, fix the timeline. Do not caption a cut you have not accepted.