The manual, the shortcuts,
and the awkward questions.
Everything here is short on purpose. Each section is the thing you would ask a person who had used the editor for a week — and the answers to the questions people are usually too polite to ask a pricing page.
Point it at a folder. That is the import.
- 01
Open the app and choose a folder
On the desktop app the editor reads your files where they already are. Nothing is copied, nothing is uploaded, and there is no import queue to wait on.
- 02
Drag clips onto the timeline
Or use part of a long take: set an in and out point and only that range lands on the track. Clips keep their original quality — the editor never transcodes your source.
- 03
Record straight in
The record dialog captures your screen or a window, a camera, a microphone, and the audio the machine itself is playing. Recordings land in the project like any other clip.
- 04
Save, and it is a file
A project is a .ccvf file you own, in a documented format. Autosave keeps it current; undo history survives the session.
Video: MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV and AVI. Audio and images in the usual formats. A clip smaller than the canvas is upscaled and will look soft — the inspector says so before you build around it. Footage with no sound of its own is flagged too.
Six keys do most of the work.
The timeline is the same one a mouse, a keyboard and an assistant all drive — there is no second mode. Every action is one undo step.
- Play / pauseSpace
- Nudge the playhead←→
- Split at the playheadS
- Delete what is selected⌫
- Undo⌘Z
- Redo⇧⌘Z
Drag a clip to move it, drag its ends to trim, drop one clip onto another to add a transition. Titles, fades, speed curves, colour looks, motion presets and effects live in the inspector on the right; what you change there is live in the preview as you change it.
Templates give you a finished structure with slots to fill; the music library gives you tracks you are allowed to use; "cut to the beat" retimes a track's shots so every change lands on a beat. Dead-air detection finds the pauses in a recording so you can remove them in one go.
Your machine renders for nothing. The cloud renders for credits.
On your own machine — free, unlimited
- Any length, up to 4K, no watermark, on every plan.
- Pick a size, a frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50, 60) and a quality — Smaller file, Balanced, Best.
- Uses the hardware encoder where your machine has one; expect roughly real time on a recent laptop for 1080p.
- Export to a file, or straight to a connected account when you are on the platform.
In the cloud — when your machine is busy or small
- Free includes 20 minutes a month, up to 1080p.
- Studio and Business render 4K with priority in the queue.
- Past what the plan includes, a cloud render spends credits — quoted before it starts.
- A render that is going nowhere can be stopped from the export dialog.
Spent on six things, quoted every time.
- What actually costs credits?
- Generated shots and stills, AI voices, captions, caption translation, and cloud rendering past what your plan includes. Nothing else.
- How do I know the price?
- The editor quotes it before the job runs — for that exact request. You confirm, then it spends. If you do not have enough, it says so and offers a pack; nothing runs and nothing is owed.
- Where do I see my balance?
- Top of the app, and in the account dialog. Purchased credits and the monthly allowance are shown separately; purchased ones are spent last and never expire.
- Do I need a card?
- Not to use the editor, ever. A card is asked for only when you buy a pack or pick a paid door, and on Stripe's own page.
The full list of what is metered, and the packs, are on the AI & credits page.
Your own Claude, on your timeline.
The desktop app hosts a small server that the assistant you already pay for can talk to. It gets eighty tools — add a title, trim, caption, export — and no access to your files.
- 01
Open the account dialog → Claude
The page explains what the assistant could do for you and shows a Connect button per assistant it can find on the machine. If a client is not installed it offers to fetch it rather than showing a button that cannot work.
- 02
Press Connect
The app writes the configuration for that client. Where it cannot automate, it hands you the one command to run instead.
- 03
Ask for something
"Cut the long pauses out of this interview and add a title at the start." The edit appears on the timeline exactly as a mouse drag would, and every request is one ⌘Z.
- 04
Let it look
The assistant can capture the real preview — a frame or a filmstrip — so it checks a title's placement or a grade by looking, not by trusting numbers.
The account dialog's Claude tab shows the last assistant that actually completed a handshake — "talked to CNEX Cut 2 minutes ago" is a fact; a config file on its own is a hope. More on editing by asking.
What happens if you stop paying.
- If I stop paying for Studio or Business?
- You land on Free with everything kept. The desktop app keeps opening your projects, keeps rendering locally, keeps exporting without a watermark. What stops is the cloud half — browser editing, priority 4K rendering, the monthly credits, the extra storage and any AI staff. Anything stored past the free gigabyte waits for you, read-only, for 28 days before it is archived; nothing is deleted on day one.
- If my card fails?
- The paid part pauses; the free editor does not. There is never a bill to chase — nothing runs that has not been paid for first.
- If I delete my account?
- Your projects are files on your own disk and stay there. Cloud projects, media and the workspace are removed with the account.
- If CNEX Cut stopped existing?
- Your .ccvf projects and your exports are ordinary files in a documented format, on your own disk. They do not live on our servers unless you chose a cloud project.
- Is my footage used to train anything?
- No. See the security page for exactly what leaves the machine and when.
Still stuck?
A real person reads the contact form, usually within a business day. Tell us what you were doing and what happened; a screenshot of the inspector helps.