A multi-track timeline that works with a thumb

Video, audio, text and image tracks in one project, with trimming, splitting, ripple delete and frame-accurate navigation. The desktop model of editing, laid out for a screen you hold.

What a track is here

A track is a layer. Clips on a higher video track composite over the ones below, audio tracks mix together, and text and image overlays sit above everything. You add a track by dragging a clip onto the + new track zone at the edge of the timeline, which means the project grows the layers it needs instead of starting with empty ones.

Four tracks sharing one playhead. Diagram, not a screenshot of the app.

Editing on the timeline

Operation	How you do it
Add a clip	Drag it out of the media bin onto a track. Drop near a cut and it inserts, shifting everything after it right; drop on top of a video clip and it stacks as a layer.
Trim	Tap a clip and pull the handles at either edge. The preview follows as you drag, so you trim to the frame you can see.
Split	Put the playhead where you want the cut and use the split button in the toolbar, or hold the clip and choose Split here from its menu.
Ripple delete	Delete and close the gap in one action, so everything after the removed clip moves back to meet the cut.
Move between tracks	Hold a clip to pick it up, then drag it across tracks or onto a + new track zone to create a layer.
Frame-by-frame	The chevrons under the preview step one frame; hold them to move faster. The toolbar has frame nudges for the selected clip.
Navigate	Drag the ruler to scrub, pinch the timeline to zoom in and out.
Unlink audio	Hold a clip and release without moving to open its menu, and unlink its audio from its video.
Undo	Undo lives in the toolbar directly above the timeline, next to split, delete and the nudges.

What goes on each kind of track

Video

Layers composite from the bottom up. Track headers set opacity and blend mode, and the eye silences a whole layer without deleting anything, which is how you compare two versions of a section.

Every clip carries its own effects, and any effect amount can be keyframed across the clip so a look builds rather than switching on.

Audio

Volume, pan and fades per clip, plus a track volume in the header and a speaker button that silences the whole track. Ducking pulls one track down whenever another is loud, so music drops under a voice on its own.

Audio effects play live in the preview, so you hear a slider as you move it rather than after a render.

Text

Titles, captions, lower thirds, end cards and countdowns, dropped at the playhead and positioned in the preview. Text can fly in and out at any angle with a motion blur trail, type itself on one character at a time, count down and fade. Thirteen faces ship with the app:

Images

Logos, watermarks, stickers and stills, placed anywhere in the frame and held for as long as you want, including the whole video. Image overlays fade in and out.

Between the clips

A transition belongs to the clip before the cut. Twelve of them ship with the app, and eleven are conventional blends that split their duration across the join.

The twelfth is the odd one out. The Glitch datamosh takes no time out of either clip: the cut stays where you put it and the effect paints over the shot that follows.

Why this matters on a phone

Plenty of phone editors give you one row of clips. That is fine until the first time you want a caption over a shot, or music under a voiceover, or a logo in the corner for the whole video. All of these need something to be in two places at once. A single row cannot express that, and the usual workaround is to export and re-import.

Stacked tracks are the difference between rearranging clips and actually building something: a piece to camera with b-roll cut over the top, a title that sits on the join, music that ducks when someone speaks. It is the model desktop editors have used for decades, and it is what the phone-sized version of it costs you nothing to have.

The parts that are genuinely harder on a small screen have their own answers here. Precision comes from the frame steppers and pinch-zoom rather than from a mouse. Long projects are kept manageable by folders in the media bin. And a finished timeline can be flattened into a template you drop into the next project, so an intro built once is built for good.

Timeline questions

Does Clip Smasher have a multi-track timeline?

Yes. Video, audio, text and image clips sit on separate tracks that stack, and you can add tracks as you need them. Clips can be trimmed, split at the playhead, ripple deleted, dragged between tracks and nudged a frame at a time.

How do I add another track?

Drag a clip onto the “+ new track” zone at the edge of the timeline and the track is created under it. Tracks are added as you need them rather than existing empty from the start, and video layers composite from the bottom up.

Can I separate the audio from a video clip?

Yes. Hold a clip and let go without moving it to open its menu, then unlink the audio from the video. They stay linked until you say otherwise, so trimming one trims the other.

Can I edit frame by frame on a phone?

Yes. The chevrons under the preview step one frame at a time, and holding them jumps faster. The toolbar above the timeline also has frame nudges for moving a selected clip precisely.

How do I mix audio from several tracks?

Each track header carries its own volume, and each clip carries volume, pan and fades. Ducking lowers one track automatically whenever another is loud, so music drops under dialogue without keyframing it by hand.

Build something on a real timeline

Clip Smasher is free to download for iPhone and Android, and the whole timeline is in the free version.

Free to download · iPhone and Android · No account · Works offline