Trimming Clips

Trimming changes when a clip starts or ends on the timeline. Railcut supports drag-to-trim, keyboard ripple trims, non-ripple trims, and rate-stretch trimming.

Drag to trim

Hover over the left or right edge of a clip with the Selection tool (V). The cursor changes to a trim cursor (double-headed arrow).

Drag the left edge — trims the clip’s in point
Drag the right edge — trims the clip’s out point

Regular drag trimming does not ripple — other clips stay where they are. Trimming a clip shorter leaves a gap.

Ripple Trim Next Edit — W

Move the playhead to where you want to trim. Press W.

Railcut finds the nearest out point at or before the playhead on targeted tracks, trims it to the playhead, and shifts all downstream clips left to fill the gap. The total sequence length gets shorter.

This is the most common trim shortcut. Great for tightening cuts while keeping everything in sync downstream.

Ripple Trim Previous Edit — Q

Move the playhead to where you want to trim. Press Q.

Railcut finds the nearest in point at or after the playhead on targeted tracks, trims it to the playhead, and shifts the clip and everything downstream left to close the resulting gap.

Q and W together cover both sides of any edit point. Move your playhead, hit Q or W, move on.

Non-ripple Trim Next Edit — Alt+W (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+W (Win)

Same as W, but no ripple. The out point trims to the playhead, leaving a gap. Downstream clips don’t move.

Non-ripple Trim Previous Edit — Alt+Q (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+Q (Win)

Same as Q, but no ripple. The in point trims to the playhead, leaving a gap before the clip.

Mark Clip — X

Press X with the playhead over a clip. Railcut sets the work area to match the clip’s in and out points. This doesn’t trim the clip — it marks the work area for RAM Preview or Lift/Extract operations.

See Work Area for more on mark operations.

Rate Stretch trim

Hold the R key (or press R to activate the Rate Stretch tool), then drag the edge of a clip. Instead of trimming the source content, this changes the clip’s playback speed so the content fits the new duration.

Drag the right edge further right → the clip plays slower. Drag it shorter → it plays faster.

See Rate Stretch for a full explanation.

Ripple tool drag trim

Press B to activate the Ripple Edit tool. Now dragging a clip edge does a ripple trim — trimming the in or out point while automatically shifting downstream clips to fill the gap.

Mark In / Mark Out — I and O

These set the work area in and out points (not clip in/out points):

I — set work area start to playhead
O — set work area end to playhead

The work area is used for RAM Preview range and for the Lift (;) and Extract (’) commands.

Trim interaction with locked tracks

Ripple trim operations skip locked tracks. Clips on locked tracks don’t shift when you Q/W trim. This lets you “anchor” a track while trimming others around it.

All trim shortcuts at a glance

Shortcut	Action
Drag clip edge	Non-ripple trim
W	Ripple Trim Next Edit to playhead
Q	Ripple Trim Previous Edit to playhead
Alt+W (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+W (Win)	Trim Next Edit (no ripple)
Alt+Q (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+Q (Win)	Trim Previous Edit (no ripple)
X	Mark Clip (set work area to clip)
I	Mark In (set work area start)
O	Mark Out (set work area end)