How to edit videos on Android

Video editing has become a must-have skill with the continued focus on video and digital content on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and more. However, you don’t have to be a professional editor to create social media-ready videos. Smartphone video editing apps aren’t as powerful as they are on a PC, but there are plenty of options available to help you edit and publish videos online quickly. How to edit videos on Android.

Continue reading: The best video editor apps for Android

While it’s possible to create all kinds of videos on your phone, anything even half complicated with multiple video and audio tracks and graphics should be edited on a computer. But video editing apps on your phone are more than enough to create videos for YouTube and social media.

There are many excellent video editing apps out there, with options ranging from simple editors to those that rival PC video editing software. Check out our roundups of the best video editing apps for Android and iOS, but Kinemaster is my top pick. If you’re paying for Adobe Creative Suite, you should check out Adobe Premiere Rush. I also like Filmora Go, but you’ll need a premium subscription (or one-time purchase) to get the most out of it.

Kinemaster is one of the best video editing apps you can get for Android. The free version is just as feature-rich as the premium option in terms of video editing. But you should afford the monthly or yearly subscription to remove in-app ads, watermark and access premium templates and assets.

You can access hundreds of video templates that can be edited or “mixed” on the fly. You’ll find templates for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube intros and outros, and more, so you don’t have to worry about creating them from scratch. Switch to Create Tab for creating and editing videos on your phone. The app accesses your phone’s gallery and shows you all the images and videos to create a video. When merging multiple videos, you may want to set up a folder in your phone’s gallery for easy access.

Kinemaster also lets you set the video’s aspect ratio in advance, so you don’t have to worry about unnecessary cropping when you publish the video on different platforms. You can set aspect ratio for YouTube videos, TikTok, YouTube short films, Instagram and more. You can also preset the default duration for photos and transitions.

With the app you can easily split, trim, speed up, pan, zoom, rotate, flip and add video filters, text and graphics. Kinemaster also has many audio features, including a sound mixer, special effects, and the ability to record voiceovers. Did you forget to record something you need? You can do this right in the app itself.

You’ll need a premium video editor for more detailed editing, but your phone’s Gallery app or Google Photos is more than up to the task if you want to edit individual video files. With the Google Photos video editor, you can trim and crop videos, and adjust brightness, contrast, and highlights. You can add filters from a basic set of options and mark videos with text or use the pen or highlighter tools.

Depending on your phone, you may see more options. The OnePlus Gallery app (on a OnePlus phone running Android 12) offers more than the Google Photos editor. You can trim and crop videos and add video filters and text. But you can also add a soundtrack, video effects, watermark and speed up or slow down the video. Samsung’s video editor adds the ability to add face effects and stickers to a video, apart from everything else the other native apps can do.

I will use Google Photos for the following guides and refer to the Samsung Gallery and OnePlus Gallery apps when they offer different functionality. This is to show all possible video edits using the free apps. For more complicated tasks, you need to use premium apps like Kinemaster and FilmoraGo.

Open the video you want to edit and tap To edit at the bottom of the screen. This step to open the editor works with Google Photos and OnePlus Gallery. In the Samsung Gallery app, tap the pencil icon to launch the video editor.

To trim video, go to Video Tab or scissors icon and use the two sliders at the beginning and end of the video to cut it. OnePlus Gallery and Samsung Gallery make video trimming a little easier as you can see a timestamp of the start and end points. Google Photos is less precise as you have to rely on visual references to trim videos.

Switch to harvest Tab to trim your video. Aspect ratio cropping is set to Free by default. Use the four-point rectangle on the video screen to resize to fit your needs. You can also set the aspect ratio to specific options like 1:1, 4:3, 3:2 and more. Use the dial to rotate the video by a specific angle, or tap the rotate button to rotate it in 90-degree blocks.

Google Photos has the ability to crop a video into odd, non-rectangular shapes as well. Tap the icon next to the rotate button and use the dots to adjust the crop zone. The Samsung Gallery app has a button to flip the video and the ability to crop and rotate the video along a horizontal or vertical axis, rather than rotating the entire image (where you lose content).

After you’ve trimmed and cropped your videos, it’s time to put everything together. Go to library tab, tap utilities, and select Movie. Google Photos uses its AI smarts to create preset movies with your photos and videos. Or you can start over by tapping new movie. You’ll see a list of all your photos and videos and you can use the search button to find specific clips.

You can crop the added videos, switch between portrait and landscape mode, and add more photos and videos to the movie. Long press on a clip and drag up and down to rearrange your timeline. You can add a music track from your music folder or choose one of the available themes. However, you have no control over the audio track. You can find your movie by going to Seek Tab and scroll down to Saved Creations.

The native apps are not the best option for adding text and graphics to videos beyond the most basic features. Google Photos lets you mark up your videos with text, a pen tool, or a highlighter tool. But it appears for the entire video and does not contain animations. It’s not the best tool if you want to add text editing to your videos on Android.

The Samsung Gallery app has better features in this regard. You can highlight a video with a pen tool or text and set the duration for how long the text is displayed. It also automatically includes animation that looks great.

For more complicated text and graphics, you’ll need an app like Kinemaster. Tap on layers and select text or handwriting. Write the text and put it on the timeline. You can easily adjust the duration and position of the text in the video. You also have many options for in-and-out animation and general cinematic animation.

Unlike the OnePlus Gallery app, Google Photos and the Samsung Gallery app have no option to add music directly to videos. In the first case, tap soundtrack In the video editor, select a track from your music folder or the available options and add it to the video. With Google Photos and Samsung Gallery, you need to create a movie with the above steps. Tap the music note icon to add a background music layer. However, you cannot customize the audio with native apps.

You have to turn to premium apps for anything beyond background music. Kinemaster allows you to overlay multiple audio tracks and record voiceovers with the app. Tap on Audio to add music and special effects, and tap the microphone icon to record a voiceover.

Filters are a great way to edit your videos on Android and make them look good with a tap. The native apps and Google Photos offer plenty of video filters to choose from. Go to filter and choose one of the many options. You see a preview of how the filter works. The app applies the filter to the entire video. If you want to change things up, the first thing you have to do is cut the videos, apply filters to each part and stitch them together. However, if you do complicated video editing on your phone, I recommend purchasing a premium app subscription.

Continue reading: How to become a video editor