Creating shorts online no longer takes editing software or a powerful computer: a browser is enough to reframe a video to vertical, cut the dead air, add captions and send it to your networks. What stays hard is not the tool. It is the starting video, and the time it takes to produce one every week.
Here are the three ways to create shorts online, what each one really asks of you, and how to choose.
What is a short, exactly?
A short is a brief vertical video, made to be watched on a phone held upright. The word comes from YouTube Shorts, but the form is the same everywhere: Reels on Instagram and Facebook, TikTok videos, vertical videos on LinkedIn and Threads. We have set out what sets Shorts, Reels and TikTok apart.
Three rules apply to all of them:
- a vertical 9:16 frame, at 1080 × 1920 pixels, with zones under the network’s buttons where nothing important should sit: the vertical format in detail;
- a short length: YouTube has accepted Shorts of up to three minutes since 15 October 2024, according to its help page, but the right length is the length of one idea: how many seconds to aim for;
- burned-in captions, because a good share of videos are watched with the sound off: why, and how to write them.
What does an online shorts editor do?
Online tools look a lot alike. Most of them offer:
- import of a video from your computer or your phone;
- vertical reframing, sometimes automatic on the face of the person speaking;
- silence cutting and slicing into pieces;
- automatic captions, with ready-made styles;
- templates: fonts, colours, music, transitions;
- export in 9:16, sometimes posting straight to one or several networks.
What none of them does for you is supply the material: you have to hand them a video. Hence the three ways of doing it, which differ by the starting video.
First way: film, then edit online
This is the most common. You film yourself with your phone or your webcam, import the take and edit it in your browser.
What it asks of you:
- an idea and a script before each shoot;
- a setup: light, sound, framing, a quiet place;
- time in front of the camera, and takes to redo when a sentence catches;
- editing each video, then posting it.
What it gives you: control over everything, the message as much as the frame. It is the right way if you like the camera and can block out a slot every week. It is also the one people drop fastest: many professionals do not like filming themselves, and the slot disappears in the first busy week.
Second way: cut up a long video
You already have a long video: a filmed podcast, a webinar, a talk, a video from your channel. An online clipping tool picks out strong moments, reframes them to vertical, captions them and offers you a series of clips.
What it asks of you:
- a long video to start from, so a podcast, webinars or a channel that already exist;
- sorting through the clips offered, some of which do not stand alone;
- touch-ups: a start cut too early, a badly captioned word;
- posting, network by network, with a text for each.
What it gives you: plenty of shorts for little effort, provided you have the long video. If you do not produce one, the tool has nothing to cut. We compare this way with a video studio in Video studio or clipping tool.
Third way: start from your calls
You film nothing and have no long video, but you hold video calls all week: discovery meetings, check-ins with your clients, workshops. In those calls you answer real questions, in your own words, with no script in front of you. That is the material.
This is what Dailies Studio does, an online video studio sold by subscription. A Chrome extension records the calls you hold on Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom, in French or English. Dailies Studio reads the whole call and pulls up to eight shorts of 30 to 90 seconds from it: reframed to 9:16 on the person speaking, silences and hesitations cut, captioned in one of its templates or in your own brand guidelines.
What it asks of you:
- holding your calls in Chrome, on a computer;
- telling your guests the call is being recorded: how to put it to them;
- looking at the shorts proposed and scheduling the ones you like.
What it gives you: shorts with no shoot and no editing, which Dailies Studio posts on the day and at the time you choose, on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn and TikTok. What it does not do: edit a video you already have, or record a call held in a desktop app or on a phone.
The three ways side by side
| Film and edit | Cut up a long video | Start from your calls | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting video | A take filmed for the occasion | A podcast, a webinar, an existing video | Your video calls |
| Time on camera | For every video | That of the long video | None beyond the call itself |
| Editing | Yours to do | Proposed, to touch up | Done, to approve |
| Post text | To write | To write | Proposed for each network |
| Posting | Yours to do | Often yours to do | Scheduled by you, done for you |
The steps of a good short, whichever way you choose
The tool changes; what makes a short worth watching does not.
- One idea only. A short that answers one clear question holds up better than one that brushes three. We show how to spot the passages that stand alone.
- An opening that goes straight to the point. The first seconds decide whether people stay: the question, the claim, the result. See seven ways to open a short.
- Readable captions: large, high-contrast, in the middle of the screen, away from the network’s buttons.
- A clean ending. The short stops when the idea has been said, not when the subject runs dry.
- A rhythm you can keep. Two to five shorts a week on your main network beat a burst followed by three months of silence: what the data says.
The most common mistakes
- Reframing without looking. An automatic reframe can cut off a head or follow the wrong person: watch every short before you post it.
- Keeping the horizontal format. A 16:9 video in a vertical feed fills only a strip of the screen. See when horizontal is still the right choice.
- Posting the same text everywhere. Each network has its own habits; a post text written for each reads better.
- Hunting for the perfect tool. The bottleneck is almost never the editor: it is the starting video, and consistency.
Which way should you choose?
- You like the camera and have a fixed slot: film, then edit online.
- You already produce long videos: cut them up with an online tool.
- You hold calls all week, with neither the time nor the wish to film yourself: start from your calls. That is the case for many consultants, coaches and freelancers.
Nothing stops you combining the last two: your podcast goes through a clipping tool, your calls through Dailies Studio, with no overlap, since Dailies Studio only takes the calls it records itself.
Key takeaways
- A browser is enough to create shorts online; the difficulty is the starting video.
- Three ways: film and edit, cut up a long video, start from your calls.
- All of them need a 9:16 frame, one idea, a direct opening and captions.
- Dailies Studio starts from your calls held in Chrome and posts your shorts on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn and TikTok.
To find out what your own calls would give, the page What is Dailies Studio? says what it does and what it does not do, the pricing is online, and the team will talk it through with you in thirty minutes.
Source
- YouTube, three-minute Shorts, help page read on 16 October 2026.