The local AI video clipper Your footage stays on your Mac
Most AI clippers make you upload the whole video, wait in a queue, and pay by the minute for a server to watch it. Reelify runs on your Mac instead. Drop in a long video and the AI finds the best clips in a couple of minutes, with no upload, no credits, and no copy of your file on anyone else's machine. It even works on a plane.
Free forever. No watermark, no credit card. For Apple Silicon Macs.
Why we stopped using cloud clippers
For two years we used the cloud ones: Opus Clip, Klap, Vidyo. The routine never changed. Upload the file, wait, pay by the minute, download the results. It worked, but three things kept nagging.
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Where did the footage go?
Some of our source video was unreleased, and some was client work under NDA. The policies had vague wording about using data to improve models, and we couldn't give a client a straight answer.
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The waiting
A 90-minute podcast can take 15 to 20 minutes just to upload. Then comes the queue, then the download. The AI part is quick. The transfer is what eats your afternoon.
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The meter
Cloud clippers rent GPU servers to process your footage, so they bill you monthly and cap your minutes. Meanwhile the Neural Engine in our Macs sat idle, in chips built for exactly this kind of work.
So we built the clipper to use that chip. Same job, no detour through a data center.
What runs on your Mac
The AI models are part of the app and run on your Apple Silicon chip. From the moment you drop a file in to the moment you export, the steps look like this:
- Transcription
- Your Mac turns the audio into text on the device
- Moment finding
- The AI reads the transcript and the audio to find hooks, strong statements, topic shifts, and natural start and end points
- Speaker tracking
- For multi-person video, it follows who is speaking so the vertical crop stays on the right person
- Suggestions
- A ranked list of clips, each with a time range, a title, and a note on the hook
- Export
- Captioned vertical 9:16 clips, rendered with your Mac's hardware acceleration
Note: Cloud AI is an optional feature. If you turn it on, only the text transcript is sent for analysis, never your video. Leave it off and nothing leaves the machine. The privacy policy has the detail.
Local or cloud, side by side
Same job, two architectures. Here is how they differ for a long recording:
| Reelify (local) | Cloud clippers | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a clip list | A couple of minutes on a recent Mac, no transfer step | Upload, queue, process, then download |
| Upload | None | The full file |
| Offline | Works | Needs a connection |
| Where the video sits | On your Mac | On the provider's servers |
| Limits | No credits and no minute caps. Free forever. | Monthly minutes or credits |
| Team review links | Not included | Often included |
Cloud tools are a fair pick when several people need to comment in the browser, or when you are not on a Mac. For everyone else clipping long recordings, the local route is simply less work.
Who should go local
- Freelancers and agenciesAnswer "where does our footage go" in one sentence.
- Embargoed and NDA contentProduct launches, pre-release interviews, and unreleased video.
- Weekly podcastersHours of source video a month, with no per-minute bill.
- StreamersSix-hour VODs, imported as one file.
- Internal company videoContent your security team won't let you upload.
- Anyone with bad internetFlights, cabins, and coffee shops.
A real session, start to finish
We finish recording a 75-minute podcast and drag the file into Reelify. By the time the coffee is made, the analysis is done and there are 14 suggested clips on screen. We drop 3 that lean too hard on earlier context, nudge the start of one by two seconds, and export the other 11. Each comes out vertical with word-level captions.
From finished recording to clips ready to schedule: about 12 minutes. The same episode through a cloud clipper was close to an hour once the upload, the wait, and the caption fixes were counted.
Three habits make it faster: close browser tabs that compete for the GPU, keep source files on the internal drive instead of a slow external one, and don't worry about 4K versus 1080p. The analysis reads mostly audio, so resolution barely changes the wait.
Frequently asked questions
What is a local AI video clipper?
It is an app that uses AI to find and cut short clips from long videos on your own computer, instead of on a remote server. The video stays on your machine while it is analyzed.
Does Reelify work offline?
Yes. You can import, analyze, clip, caption, and export without an internet connection. Only the optional Cloud AI feature needs one.
Is my video uploaded anywhere?
No. The video file is processed on your Mac. According to the privacy policy, the optional Cloud AI feature sends only the text transcript, never the video.
How fast is local clipping compared with cloud tools?
A long recording is usually ready for review within a couple of minutes on a recent Mac. A cloud clipper adds upload, queue, and download time on top of its processing.
Which Macs does it run on?
Any Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) on macOS 15 or later. Intel Macs are not supported. See the Apple Silicon AI video clipper page for chip details.
Is there a free local AI video clipper?
Yes. Reelify for Mac is free forever, with AI clipping on every video, 1080p exports with no watermark, and no credit card. There is also a free iPhone and iPad app with no video limit, where you pick the moments from the transcript.
Keep your footage where it is
Drop in the recording you would never upload. See what Reelify finds, with no copy of it anywhere but your own drive.
Rated 4.9★ on the App Store.