What is BitterClip?
If you make long videos or podcasts and want short clips out of them, this page explains what BitterClip does and the few words you'll see throughout the docs.
BitterClip in plain words
BitterClip turns a long video or audio recording into short clips you can trust. You bring the recording; it writes out a transcript with every word tied to the moment it was spoken. Then you, or an AI assistant like ChatGPT or Claude, pick the strongest moments, and BitterClip cuts the exact clip straight from the audio. No timeline to drag, no timestamps to guess. It runs in your browser at app.bitterclip.com.
You don't need to set anything up first. It's free to start, and when you create an account you land in a working space right away.
The three things you'll work with
There are three things you'll work with in BitterClip, and each one comes from the last.
- Recording — a video or audio file you upload. This is your raw source: the full interview, the whole podcast take, the long stream.
- Episode — the recording laid out as a transcript timeline, with the words lined up to the audio. This is where you actually work. An episode can be one recording on its own, or several recordings joined into a single timeline. When you upload a recording, BitterClip transcribes it and turns it into its own episode for you automatically.
- Clip — a short, exported cut taken from an episode. You pick the part worth keeping, and the clip is what you download or post.
So the path is simple: Recording → Episode → Clip. Upload a recording, open it as an episode, pick your clip.
One episode can come from more than one recording. Say you record your side of a conversation and a guest records theirs. You upload your video, then add the guest's into the same episode. Now it's two recordings, one episode: a single timeline you clip from as if it were one piece.
Where it runs
There are two ways to work, and your recordings and clips are the same in both. The browser is the place to manage everything in one window. If you'd rather just say what you want out loud, ChatGPT or Claude can do the work for you while you talk it through. Whichever you start in, you can pick up where you left off in the other. The assistant guide walks through that side.
How a clip actually gets made
The cut is built from the words you keep, not from numbers you type in.
You don't type in timestamps. You (or your AI assistant) pick the strongest moment by choosing the words to keep, right in the transcript. Every word in the transcript is already lined up to the audio, so BitterClip knows exactly when each one was spoken.
The cut runs from the first word you kept to the last, with a little breathing room added before and after so the clip doesn't feel clipped off. It lands in the natural gaps between words, so a clip never starts or ends mid-word. To get the edge exactly right, your assistant can look closely at the actual sound at a cut point and choose to end the clip just before the next breath. You get a clean clip that starts and ends on a full thought.
Because the cut comes from the words, every clip stays tied to its recording, its speaker, and the exact moment it came from. You can always trace a clip back to the spot in the recording where it was said.
Ready to try it?
BitterClip is free to start. Create your account and you're in a working space right away. We'll email you a verification link when you sign up — click it to start uploading and transcribing recordings.