Whether you're creating video for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or just making a short movie for friends, a smartphone is all you need. These mobile video editing apps will amaze you with their powers.
PC hardware is nice, but it’s not much use without innovative software. I’ve been reviewing software for PCMag since 2008, and I still get a kick out of seeing what’s new in video and photo editing software, and how operating systems change over time. I was privileged to byline the cover story of the last print issue of PC Magazine, the Windows 7 review, and I’ve witnessed every Microsoft win and misstep up to the latest Windows 11.
Videos you watch on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are often produced on full-size PCs, but now that mobile video editing apps are more capable than ever, plenty of people edit right on their phones. A multitude of impressive apps for making video magic are available for Android and iOS. Some of the apps are template-based, requiring you to do no more than select photos and video clips to produce a compelling final product. Others give you nearly as much control as a sophisticated desktop video editing app, with tools for overlays, time remapping, motion effects, and audio editing. Some have free versions, though it’s worth paying a few dollars to get the best features. These are our picks for the best video editing apps for mobile devices.
Best for Fast-Paced Social Posting
Adobe’s mobile video editing app for Android and iOS, Rush, is well designed. You can use it to edit videos entirely from a mobile device, or you can sync projects to your Creative Cloud account and finish them up using Premiere Pro on the desktop, if you prefer. Versions of Rush itself are available for macOS and Windows, as well. You can shoot video in the app either in simple mode or advanced mode, which lets you manually set aperture and focus. Once you have some content, you can add titles, soundtracks, and graphics overlays. For vertical output, like for TikTok, an Auto Reframe feature finds the active area of a landscape shots and crops it accordingly. The standard adjustments for lighting and color are at your disposal, and you can add track overlays and speed changes. One thing you won’t find are project templates like those offered by other apps. After rendering a project, you can export it directly to Behance, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. Rush is now included with Adobe Express.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for iPhone Users
iMovie was among the first truly functional mobile video editors. The way it handles timelines, letting you scroll the track with your finger rather than moving an insertion point cursor like you have to do on desktop video editors, was a major innovation. The app lets you manage standard video joining and trimming, as well as tackling more advanced video editing, like green-screen compositing and speed altering. Apple recently augmented one of our favorite iMovie features, Trailers templates, with Storyboard movies, which shows you exactly what kind of shots to insert to create a compelling video. Also new is Magic Movie, which automatically trims clips and adds titles, transitions, and background music. Another plus is you can continue editing projects on a desktop Mac in iMovie or Final Cut Pro.
Platforms: iOS
Best for Non-Designers Making Branded Content
Canva targets small business owners, entrepreneurs, and influencers who want to up their social media game. This app is completely template-based and loaded with stock content so that you don’t have to worry about being a pro editor to make your videos or graphics look professional. You can make something without needing a single shot of your own. Or you can use your own video clips and photos to do some fancy editing with them, like stacking multiple videos in a vertical layout or using overlays that you can crop. The app recently added a few more basic video editing features like slider bars to change the brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness. You can think of Canva as being like the video equivalent of a lightweight graphics design application, with tools for adding and editing text, shapes, and borders. It’s available for free, but many of its features, stock content, and templates require a Pro subscription, which also adds collaboration features for design teams.
Platforms: Android, iOS, and web
Best for Quick Social Videos With Fun Effects
This well-designed and feature-full free app, owned by TikTok creator ByteDance, makes short work of creating shareable videos, thanks to its ShortCut option. With CapCut, you select clips and photos, and the app adds background music and effects. It added a video shake effect and flame overlays to one test video, though it was a bit slow, taking a couple minutes to render 30 seconds worth of clips on a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. You can split clips, add text, remove backgrounds from shots with people, and even use overlays with transparency. An impressive recent update added motion tracking, face and body effects reminiscent of Snapchat’s, and transitions for overlays. When you’re done editing, the suggested place to share your work is—you guessed it—TikTok.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for Full-Power Video Editing on Phones
Just like its desktop counterpart PowerDirector 365, the mobile version of PowerDirector is loaded with editing tools, templates, transitions, and effects. You can create projects in vertical or horizontal aspects, and you can add titles and soundtracks. Subscribers have access to stock footage from Shutterstock, Getty iStock, and Pixabay. You get nearly all the same tools that come on the desktop program, including overlays with transparency, chroma keying, animated text titles, and even effect keyframing. Particularly useful for mobile use is the Fit & Fill tool, which makes reformatting horizontal content to vertical, and vice versa, a snap. New features include auto-captioning, adjustment effect layers, advanced crop tool, and scads of video intro templates. The app includes templates for business social posts, vlogs, and Instagram videos. You can use the app for free, though to get extra goodies and remove the watermark, you need to pay for a (frequently discounted) subscription. You can also score premium features by undertaking video challenges.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for GoPro Owners
You don’t have to own a GoPro to use this nifty app, but if you do have one, GoPro Quick brings even more to the table. Standout capabilities include automatic highlight video creation and a Mural feature that lets you gather your most beloved media and save it to the cloud. You get 14 themes that add titles and music to your creations. When you want to get more hands on with your projects, Quik has plenty of editing tools like Exposure, Contrast, Vibrance, Temp, Shadows, and Highlights. You also get 47 filters as well as speedup and slowdown effects. A subscription costs only $9.99 per year, with a one-week free trial; without a subscription, you can’t do much aside from using auto-edits. Note that it’s a large download at 255MB and that it didn’t support HEIC photo files in testing.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for Video Compilations and Collages
InShot is a fun-looking app that lets you produce not only video compilations but also collages and photo edits. When you start, simple help tips show you how to split and trim clips, zoom in on the timeline, and swap clip positions. One of its strengths is that it gives you a number of stickers to overlay on your videos, in addition to text. Unlike competing video app Splice, InShot lets you easily position your overlays either by dragging the item around with a finger. Picture-in-picture, masking, cropping, and speed changing—including one-click freeze frame—are all at your disposal, as are a generous helping of transition styles. Surprisingly, the app even offers keyframe editing, which lets you animate effects. Background music is available to add from a decent library of stock, but there’s no image stock. The app is free with ads and watermarks on your final creations. You can remove ads and watermarks and get more effects and stickers for $3.99 per month, $14.99 per year, or $34.99 for forever.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for Audio Features and Remixing Other People's Videos
KineMaster lets you not only edit your own videos, but also download existing projects and remix them to your needs. Start with either horizontal or vertical aspect ratios and then apply standard video edits like trim, split, overlays, transitions, and effects. You can reverse or change the speed of videos as well as adding rotation, panning, and zooming. Text options include a good selection of fonts, and you can apply animations, too. You get color filters, chroma-keying, and a surprising choice of audio effects and soundtrack option. It’s pretty much a full desktop video editing package that runs on the phone in an interface that doesn’t feel cramped. A new background remover is similar to Apple’s touted subject cutout feature in iOS 16. The free version of the app watermarks your work, but for a pricey $11.99 per month or $119.99 annually you get premium assets and no watermarks.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best Interace and Workflow
Splice has just about the slickest interface of any mobile video editing app, with a clear workflow and all the tools you could want. You can easily create picture-in-picture overlays (with transparency), chroma keys, masks, and speed changes. The app also supports HDR output. Nifty transitions are at your disposal, as well as glitch and vintage effects and tons of text styles. You don’t get quite as much stock content or objects to overlay as you do in PowerDirector’s mobile app, though Splice’s music library is excellent. The price is on the steep, side however, starting at $4.99 per week, $14.99 per month, or $99.99 per year.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for Easy Template-Based Marketing Videos
Vimeo is the video hosting service used largely by movie and video professionals. In addition to hosting videos, the company puts out a screen capture program called Vimeo Record and a mobile video editing app called Vimeo Create. Vimeo Create makes it easy for both marketers and regular people to put together a compelling piece of video. The template-based app is free, but some templates require a $24.99-per-month Pro account. Accounts can also take advantage of stock libraries of video and music. Happily, you can filter template options to find the free ones. Adding video can be slow, but the app emails you when it finishes processing. The app lets you add stickers and text with animations, and it automatically applies template-based transitions. It doesn’t offer much in the way of detailed editing options like keyframes, overlays, or time remapping. Many of the stickers and styles are suitable for creating engaging sales and marketing quick takes, so this highly automated tool is best suited for people in those fields who want to produce something good-looking without getting into the weeds of video editing.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for Stickers and Fun Effects
Wondershare makes Filmora desktop video editing software for macOS and Windows as well as this full-featured freemium mobile app for Android and iOS. With FilmoraGo, you can shoot video with your smartphone, use a template, or start from scratch. When you choose a template, everything is done for you—you just have to add the specified number of photos or video clips. The full editor is clean-looking and powerful, with tooltips like Make This Video Cooler, which takes you to the bountiful transition options. Loads of effects, stickers, and background music tracks come with the app, and a Voiceover button makes narration simple. You can choose a blending mode for overlays, and a new Smart Cutout feature removes backgrounds automatically. You can change speed and apply a one-tap freeze frame effect. The free version applies a Filmora watermark and limits you to 720p resolution, which is all right for phone viewing. The Pro update removes those constraints and adds lots more effects and content; it costs $3 per month with annual commitment, $11.49 month-to-month, or $59.99 for permanent access.
Platforms: Android and iOS
Best for Free Standard Video Edits
YouCut is a clear, capable, and affordable video editing app for Android and iOS. The app is surprisingly powerful. In addition to the standard clip joining, trimming and splitting, you get cool effects, filters, transitions, PiP, background music, speedup/slowdown, and text overlays. You get quite a bit of this for free, and the app doesn’t watermark your creations the way many free video editors do. For just $4.99 per year or $12.99 one-time purchase, you get a whole lot more filters and effects. There’s even a tool to generate custom backgrounds to turn a horizontal shot to square or vertical. Save the file to the phone’s local storage setting a resolution up to 4K, frame rate, and quality level using sliders, and then share to any social app installed.
Platforms: Android and iOS
True, you can do a lot with these mobile video editing apps, but for the ultimate in video editing software, you have to move to desktop software. For our recommendations, see our roundup of the best video editing software. And if still photos are your thing, check out our picks for the best photo editing software.
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PC hardware is nice, but it’s not much use without innovative software. I’ve been reviewing software for PCMag since 2008, and I still get a kick out of seeing what’s new in video and photo editing software, and how operating systems change over time. I was privileged to byline the cover story of the last print issue of PC Magazine, the Windows 7 review, and I’ve witnessed every Microsoft win and misstep up to the latest Windows 11.
Prior to my current role, I covered software and apps for ExtremeTech, and before that I headed up PCMag’s enterprise software team, but I’m happy to be back in the more accessible realm of consumer software. I’ve attended trade shows of Microsoft, Google, and Apple and written about all of them and their products.
I’m an avid bird photographer and traveler—I’ve been to 40 countries, many with great birds! Because I’m also a classical fan and former performer, I’ve reviewed streaming services that emphasize classical music.
Read Michael’s full bio
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