How to Turn a YouTube Video into Shorts (Your Own Long Uploads)
Your channel already holds hours of finished material: interviews, tutorials, podcasts, livestream replays. Each long upload got its views in the first week and then went quiet. Shorts are the cheapest way to send new viewers back to it, because the hard part — recording something worth watching — is already done.
There are two ways to convert a YouTube video to Shorts, and they suit different situations.
Method 1: YouTube's Built-In "Edit into a Short"
The YouTube mobile app can make a Short straight from one of your long-form videos. On the watch page of your video, tap Remix, then Edit into a Short, and drag the selector over the section you want.
- Length: up to 60 seconds taken from the long video. If you pick less, you can record extra footage on your phone to fill the rest. Regular Short uploads can run up to 3 minutes, but this tool still caps at 60 seconds.
- Link back: the Short links to the original video, which helps send viewers to the full upload.
- Framing: a 16:9 video lands in the vertical frame with space above and below. You can zoom and position it by hand.
- Choosing moments: entirely manual. You scrub through the video and decide where each Short starts.
This route is free and quick for one Short from a video you know well. On a 60-minute interview it gets slow: you rewatch the hour to find moments, make each Short one by one, and add captions with YouTube's text tool line by line.
Method 2: YouTube Video to Shorts with AI on iPhone
An AI clip maker reads the transcript of the whole video and picks the segments that make sense on their own. Bitcut does this on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with the YouTube link as the starting point.
Copy the link to your YouTube video
Standard links, youtu.be short links, and links with timestamps all work. Open Bitcut and it offers to import the link from your clipboard. Details are in the YouTube import guide.
Pick 1080p
Choose the download quality. 1080p keeps the vertical crop sharp after reframing; 4K mostly adds file size for Shorts.
Run Generate Shorts
Tap the AI button and choose Generate Shorts. Only the audio goes to the server. A 30-minute video typically gives 5–10 clips in 1–3 minutes, and you can close the app while it works.
Review each Short
Every clip arrives as its own project with a suggested title, a quality score, and captions. Adjust the start and end, fix misheard words, and delete the clips you would not post.
Reframe to 9:16 and export
Face tracking (Pro) keeps the speaker centered in the vertical crop; for a two-person interview see multi-face tracking. Export with the 9:16 aspect ratio and upload to Shorts, Reels, or TikTok.
Want to see which moments the AI would pick before installing anything? Paste the link into the free YouTube to Shorts converter in your browser. It reads the captions, lists the best segments with hooks and titles, and plays each one from the original video.
Convert a YouTube Video to Shorts: Both Methods Side by Side
| YouTube "Edit into a Short" | Bitcut Generate Shorts | |
|---|---|---|
| Shorts per run | One | Several, one project each |
| Who picks the moments | You, by scrubbing | AI from the transcript, you approve |
| Clip length from the source | Up to 60 seconds | Set by where the idea ends |
| Captions | Typed by hand | Word-by-word, automatic |
| Vertical reframe on the speaker | Manual zoom | Face tracking (Pro) |
| Also posts to Reels and TikTok | ✗ | ✓ Same exported file |
| Cost | Free | 30 AI minutes a month free, Pro $9.99/month |
A useful split: YouTube's tool for the one moment you already have in mind, AI for the back catalog where you have not rewatched the videos in months.
Long YouTube Video to Shorts: Which Uploads Work Best
Generate Shorts finds moments in speech, so the videos that convert best are the ones where people talk:
- Interviews and podcasts. Each question and answer is a natural clip. See how to turn a podcast into Shorts.
- Tutorials and lectures. One concept or one tip per Short.
- Livestream replays. Q&A sections give the densest material. Streams on Twitch are covered in Twitch clips to TikTok.
- Sermons and talks. See sermon clips for the church version of this workflow.
Music videos, montages, and gameplay with no commentary give the AI little to read. For those, cut by hand in the editor or use beat sync to match cuts to the music.
Mind the AI minutes on long uploads: a 60-minute video uses about 60 minutes of quota, twice the free monthly allowance. Pro covers 300 minutes a month, roughly five hour-long videos. Check what your back catalog needs:
Back catalog minutes calculator
YouTube Video to TikTok and Reels from the Same Clips
The clips Bitcut exports are plain 9:16 video files with captions burned in, so the same file goes to YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Facebook Reels. Two things to adjust per platform: keep captions out of the bottom fifth of the frame, where each app puts its own buttons and description, and write a new first line of the description for each audience. The free video hook generator drafts opening lines from a topic.
For the general version of this workflow with any long recording, including footage that never went to YouTube, see long video to Shorts on iPhone. If your source is landscape and you only need the reframe, read how to convert horizontal video to vertical.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. In the YouTube app, open your video, tap Remix, then Edit into a Short, and select up to 60 seconds. For several Shorts with captions from one long video, an AI clip maker such as Bitcut does the cutting for you.
YouTube's Edit into a Short tool takes up to 60 seconds from the original video. A Short you edit elsewhere and upload yourself can run up to 3 minutes.
Only with the owner's permission. Bitcut's YouTube import is meant for your own published videos. Reposting another channel's footage can get the Short removed and bring a copyright strike.
Bitcut's free plan includes 30 AI minutes a month, which covers a video of up to about 30 minutes, with a watermark on exports. The browser-based YouTube to Shorts converter on bitcut.app finds the best moments for free without signing up.
Shorts created with Edit into a Short link to the original automatically. For Shorts you upload yourself, add the full video as the related video in YouTube Studio so the link appears under the Short.