---
title: Your first clip
description: Sign up, upload a recording, and get your first captioned clip out, start to finish, in the browser.
navigation:
  label: Your first clip
  order: 1
section: getting-started
updated: '2026-06-24'
tags:
  - quickstart
  - getting-started
---

# Your first clip

This walks you from a brand-new account to a finished clip you can download, all in your
browser. You don't need any editing experience.

## 1. Sign up

::signup-cta
::

## 2. Create a project

A project is a home for one show or series. Your recordings, episodes, and clips all live
inside it, so everything from the same show stays together. Make one and give it a name
you'll recognize later: your podcast title, your channel name, whatever fits.

[screenshot: the New project button and the name field]

## 3. Upload a recording

Open your project and click to upload, or drag your file onto the upload area. This is the
raw file you're starting from: an interview, an episode, a talk you gave. BitterClip takes
any file your device sees as audio or video. How large it can be depends on your plan.

[screenshot: dragging a file onto the upload area]

::callout{type="note"}
Uploading and transcribing need a verified email first. Click the link in the email
BitterClip sent when you signed up and you're set. (If you signed in with Google, you're
already verified.) When an upload or transcription won't go through, this is usually why.
See [troubleshooting](/docs/help/troubleshooting).
::

## 4. Let BitterClip transcribe it

Once the upload finishes, BitterClip transcribes it into words timed to the audio. This runs
in the background and can take a while on a long recording, so feel free to leave and come
back. It keeps processing. When it's done, the recording becomes its own
[**episode**](/docs/getting-started/what-is-bitterclip) automatically, and the episode is the
thing you'll actually work in.

::callout{type="tip"}
An episode is just your recording, ready to clip. If you join more than one recording
together later, they share a single episode timeline. For your first clip, one recording is
one episode.
::

## 5. Open the episode and find the part worth sharing

Open the episode and you'll see the full transcript. Read through it, then select the words
you want to keep. Selecting the words is how you pick your clip.

::how-the-cut-works
::

## 6. Fine-tune the start and end

Your clip shows up in the transcript editor with a start and an end already set. Read it
over. To trim or extend it, change which words you've got selected, the same thing you did in
step 5. Add a word at the front for a little lead-in, or drop one at the end to tighten the
ending. The cut follows your selection.

[screenshot: refining a selection in the transcript editor]

## 7. Export the captioned clip

When the clip looks right, hit Export. You'll get a chance to pick the shape of the video
first. Exports keep your source's shape by default (a widescreen recording stays
widescreen), and you can choose vertical or square when you export. Pick vertical if you're
headed for Shorts, Reels, or TikTok.

BitterClip then renders an MP4 with the captions burned right into the picture, so they look
the same everywhere you post it. (If you ever turn captions off, the video comes out without
them.) Rendering runs in the background, so give it a moment to finish.

That's your first clip. You'll find it in your project's **Outputs** tab, linked back to the
recording it came from, and it's ready to download or share.

::example-clip-prompt
::

See [Use BitterClip from your AI assistant](/docs/assistants/overview) to set that up.

::next-steps
---
links:
  - to: /docs/getting-started/find-and-share-clips
    label: Find and share your clips
  - to: /docs/publishing/publish-a-clip
    label: Publish a clip to your channels
---
::