Cutting Clips

Cutting a clip in Railcut splits it into two pieces at a specified time. Under the hood, Railcut duplicates the AE layer and sets new in/out points so each half shows the correct portion of the source.

Add Edit — Ctrl+K

Move the playhead to the point where you want to cut. Press Ctrl+K.

This splits all clips on targeted tracks that the playhead intersects. Only tracks that are currently targeted (enabled for editing) are affected. Locked tracks are skipped.

Tip

Track targeting works like Premiere: each track header has a targeting indicator. Click a track header to toggle targeting on or off. Untargeted tracks are protected from Ctrl+K cuts.

Add Edit to All Tracks — Ctrl+Shift+K

Press Ctrl+Shift+K to split clips at the playhead on all tracks, regardless of targeting. This cuts everything the playhead crosses.

Add Edit mode preference

In Settings → Preferences, you can change how Ctrl+K behaves:

• Track targeting (default) — cuts only clips on targeted tracks, ignoring everything else
• Selection / all tracks — if clips are selected, cuts only those clips; if nothing is selected, cuts all non-locked tracks at the playhead

The “Selection / all tracks” mode is useful if you’d rather select what you want to cut instead of managing track targets.

The Blade tool — C

Press C to switch to the Blade tool. Click anywhere on a clip to split it at that point. The split happens at the exact click position (snapping applies if snap is enabled).

Press V to return to the Selection tool when you’re done cutting.

Edit On-the-Fly

You can use Ctrl+K while RAM Preview is playing. Railcut captures the key and sends the split command at the current playback position. The playhead is moving, so cuts won’t be perfectly frame-accurate, but it’s a fast way to mark edit points while listening to audio.

Paste Insert — Ctrl+Shift+V

Paste Insert inserts clipboard clips at the playhead position with ripple behavior:

1. Copy or cut clips with Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X
2. Move the playhead to where you want to insert
3. Press Ctrl+Shift+V

Railcut splits any clip that spans the playhead at the insert point, shifts all clips on the affected tracks to the right, and inserts the pasted clips into the gap. Clips are inserted on the same track type they were copied from.

This is different from regular Ctrl+V (paste), which uses overwrite mode and doesn’t shift existing clips.

How cuts work in After Effects

When Railcut splits a clip, it:

1. Trims the original layer’s out point to the split time
2. Duplicates the layer
3. Trims the duplicate’s in point to the split time

Both halves share the same source. They’re independent layers in AE. You can trim, move, or delete either half without affecting the other.

Join Through Edits

Right-click directly on the edit point between two clips (where one ends and the other begins) to get the Edit Point Context Menu. If the two clips are from the same source and the source content is continuous across the cut (a “through edit”), you’ll see a Join Through Edits option. This merges the two clips back into one, removing the cut point.

Undo

Cuts are fully undoable. Press Ctrl+Z in Railcut to undo. The operation appears as “Railcut: Split Layer” in AE’s undo history.