How the Reel Editor works

The Reel Editor is where a reel template becomes your reel. It runs in the browser, works on a copy of the template (the project), and turns that project into a video file when you press Export. If you haven't made one yet, Your first Reel walks through it end to end; this article explains what everything is.

Basic and Advanced

The toggle at the top of the screen switches between two ways of working on the same project. Nothing is lost when you switch — they're two views of one reel.

Basic shows one card per clip slot in the template and nothing else. You swap each clip for your own — by hand, or with Autofill — and the template's layout, text timing and music stay exactly as designed. It's the right mode for most reels most of the time.

Advanced opens the full editor: a timeline with a track for every clip and every line of text, a tool rail for adding things, and an inspector for whatever you select. Use it when a clip needs trimming, a line of text should arrive later, or you want to add something the template didn't have.

The screen in Advanced

• Tool rail (left) — Text, Media, Shape and Elements add a new layer

to the reel. So does the + Add button on the timeline, which also offers Audio.

• Preview (center) — plays the reel. Under it: skip to start, play/pause, skip to end,

the current time, and a scrubber. Click a layer here to select it; drag it to move it.

• Sidebar tabs (right) — Layers lists everything on the reel; Media is where

clips get filled or replaced; Caption is the text that goes with the post.

• Timeline (bottom) — every layer as a block on a track, in time. It has its own

article: The timeline.

In Basic the sidebar has Edit (the slot cards), Media and Caption, and there's no tool rail or timeline.

Where clips are filled

The Media tab has two modes at the top:

• Autofill shows your best-matching clips for every slot, with Fill all and

Shuffle to do every slot at once, and a Media from filter to work from one folder. How the matching works is in Autofill.

• Replace is the manual route: a Replace button per slot that opens your media,

a Trim button to choose which part of a clip plays, and Speed fill, which walks you through every slot without closing the picker in between.

In Advanced you can also right-click a clip on the timeline and choose Replace media.

Layers and the inspector

In Advanced, selecting a layer — on the preview, in the timeline, or in the Layers tab — opens its inspector in the sidebar. What you get depends on the layer: video and image layers have crop, adjustments, volume and transition sections; text layers have the font, fill, stroke, background, effects and animation sections. The sections are collapsible, and the same layer keeps the same settings whichever way you selected it.

The caption

Caption holds the text that will be posted with the reel. It's saved with the project, shown on the download page, and included in the reminder email when the reel is scheduled — so writing it here means it's ready wherever you pick the reel up.

Saving

The editor does not save by itself. Press Save in the top bar, or Ctrl S / ⌘ S, and do it before you close the tab. If you try to leave with unsaved changes the browser warns you; click through that and those changes are gone. Undo history doesn't survive a reload either.

Exporting

Export does two things: it saves the project, then renders it as an MP4 at standard quality — there's nothing to choose. Rendering happens in the background, so you can keep editing or leave the page, and one reel renders at a time; pressing Export again while one is running just tells you to wait.

When it's done, a Download to Phone dialog appears with a QR code for the file. The clock icon next to Export lists every export of this project, and each is also kept under Settings → Exports. Getting the file onto your phone, and what to do if a render sits at the same percentage, are covered in Exporting.

Keyboard shortcuts

These work whenever you're not typing in a text box. On a Mac, use ⌘ where the table says Ctrl.