v0.7.2 | Faster library processing that uses 60 percent less of your plan
ButterCut — hand-drawn stick of butter

Make Claude your assistant video editor

ButterCut is the indie video app that teaches Claude to understand video and build selects, scenes, and rough cuts.
It saves you time and gets you unstuck.

Premiere, Final Cut & Resolve Uses Claude or ChatGPT subscription Edit video with Claude
The gist

ButterCut

Exports

Works with Premiere, Final Cut & Resolve.

Assists

Assembles selects, scenes & rough cuts.

Saves

Runs on your Claude or ChatGPT subscription.

claude · ~/Videos/tokyo-vlog
Can you make a select of the interview clips from the Embarcadero Plaza shoot?
CLAUDE · BUTTERCUT
Found 32 clips · six interviewees, eight questions each. Want me to pull all the interviews, or selects for just one question?
All six interviews Just one question Pick the best answers
Pull the audio of their first and last name, plus their answer to "best chihuahua groomers in San Francisco."
CLAUDE · BUTTERCUT
Pulling each name read, then the chihuahua-groomer answer from all six interviewees. Trimming 'ums' and false starts now…
··· Opening in DaVinci Resolve
• Type a note or "make it shorter"
embarcadero_chihuahua_selects_v1.xml
01:00:12:08 / 01:04:32:14
00:0001:0002:00
SLA
Maya ·
B-RO
Daniel
12 takes · 3:18 total • auto-trimmed 28 filler words
What ButterCut does

You write.
You shoot.
Claude Cuts.

Claude can't hold a camera, but he's ready to pore over your footage, transcribe every word, and prepare every select and scene until you're ready to press publish.

01 · INGEST

Drop a folder of footage.

Point ButterCut at any folder on your Mac. It picks up everything inside: interview rushes, B-roll, screen recordings, voice memos. Your footage never leaves your machine.

  • One-folder setup
  • Any codec, any frame rate
  • Stays on your local drive
02 · PROCESS

Transcribe, analyze, summarize.

Claude transcribes every word with frame-accurate timing, watches each clip to log shot type, framing, and who's on camera, and writes a one-paragraph summary per clip. By the time you sit down, it knows what's in your footage.

  • Word-level transcripts
  • Per-frame visual analysis
  • One-paragraph clip summaries
03 · PRODUCE

Selects, scenes, and rough cuts.

Pitch a direction or let Claude propose two or three. It pulls the best takes, trims filler, builds scenes, and exports a full rough cut to Final Cut, Premiere, or Resolve. You take it from there.

  • Filler-free selects
  • Scene assembly with notes
  • FCPXML / Premiere XML / Resolve
Re: Claude + ButterCut

The humble, hungry, free assistant video editor

Boy genius. Film-school grad. Also swimming in $194,358 of film school / pre-training debt, which is why he's yours, for cheap.

Resume
  • Experience · 01 Always down to edit movies. Fluent in Premiere, Resolve, and Final Cut. Opens any project file you hand him.
  • Temperament · 02 Never tired. Never bored. Will watch take 47 again. Happily. Has an opinion when you don't.
  • Memory · 03 Remembers every clip, by name. Indexes 100% of footage. Recall by description, timecode, or vibe.
Take 5

Frequently asked questions

01 Does ButterCut upload my footage anywhere?

Your raw video files never leave your Mac or need to be uploaded. ButterCut visually looks at your footage and creates transcripts locally. Summaries of your footage, stills as well as transcripts are digested by Claude or ChatGPT.

02 How do I install ButterCut?

ButterCut runs inside Claude Desktop, locally on your Mac — there’s no separate app to launch. See the full install guide for the step-by-step.

03 Which editor does it work with?

Final Cut (FCPXML 1.8), Premiere (xmeml), and DaVinci Resolve (xmeml). You can export any cut to any of these three editors.

04 How does ButterCut understand my footage?

ButterCut pulls frames from your video and detects scene changes. It also transcribes your footage and summarizes it so it can have an overview of all your footage in its head without having to memorize every word and frame.

It’s quite impressive the first time you see it! AI!

05 Does it work with CapCut?

Unfortunately no. CapCut doesn’t support importing external files, so there’s no way to export to CapCut.