If you like to edit videos on a Chromebook, there are a few different options including web apps, Android apps, and Linux apps. In this post, I will recommend 5 top free Chromebook video editors and help you decide which will suit you best.
Kapwing Web App
Best for editing videos occasionally.
Pros:
Quick access from any web browser.
Multiple features are offered in the free plan.
No watermark.
Accept online video.
Cons:
250MB file upload limit.
Export videos no more than 7 minutes long.
Publish 3 hours of video at most per month.
Kapwing is a free web-based video editor. You can access it via any web browser, so it is quite convenient for Chromebook users. There is no need to download anything or register an account.
On the Kapwing Editor page, you can either upload a video from your local hard drive or paste the URL of an online video to edit directly. Once your video is loaded, you can add text, combine, split, or trim your video, add subtitles, add audio, and remove video backgrounds with or without green screens.
This tool also allows you to customize the video output ratio. 1:1, 9:16, 16:9, 4:5, and 5:4 are available. It is free to use and no watermark in the output video. You can also upgrade to paid plans to unlock more advanced features like uploading your own fonts.
WeVideo Web App
Best for editing videos in easy steps.
Pros:
Easy to use.
Lots of effects and transitions.
Record screen, webcam, and voiceover.
Built-in templates.
Friendly for low specs Chromebooks.
Cons:
Need to upgrade for no watermark.
Max video resolution 480p.
5 minutes per month publish time for free plan.
WeVideo is another web-based video editor. You will need to install the extension in the Chrome Web Store before you can use it for editing videos. Thanks to the accessible interface, WeVideo is quite popular among Chromebook users.
You can upload videos on your device’s hard drive or capture video in real-time for editing. After that, you can drag and drop to use the built-in templates to create videos fast. In addition, there are lots of sound effects, transitions, and video effects, which are free to all users.
The editing flow is quite smooth even if your Chromebook is old with low specs. However, WeVideo is the least free user- friendly app listed in this post. Free users can only export 5 minutes of video in a month with 480p resolution. All the video exports will be watermarked.
PowerDirector Android App
Best for editing videos with effects.
Pros:
Edit and export videos in 4K resolution.
Built-in stock library including photos, music, sound effects.
Speed adjustment.
Voice changer.
Cons:
Contains ads and popups for payment.
Since Chromebooks can install Android apps from the Google Play Store. Android video editor apps are also a great choice for editing videos on ChromeOS. If your Chromebook can run Android apps, you should give PowerDirector a try.
If your Chromebook supports Android apps, you need to check out PowerDirector. Within PowerDirector, you can find quite a few powerful editing tools to perfect your video. You can also select photos, music, sound effects from the built-in stock library.
Some advanced features are also free to use, for example, you can also adjust the transparency, adjust speed, add animated titles, remove background with green screens, etc.
The free version contains ads and it will pop up to ask you to upgrade to the paid plans. You can pay a subscription fee to remove ads and get premium features.
PowerDirector is free to use, but you’ll need to pay to unlock all the features.
CapCut Android App
Best for editing short videos in general.
Pros:
Easy to use.
No watermark.
Free without ads.
Lots of advanced editing features for free.
Automatic speech to text/text to speech.
Remove background with or without green screens.
Cons:
Export resolution is limited to 1080p.
If you use TikTok, you should also try CapCut to edit videos. Both CapCut and TikTok are provided by ByteDance. CapCut is powerful as PowerDirector for Android, but without ads.
Like PowerDirector, Capcut has a stabilization tool and it can even be adjusted to some degree. AI Remove Background and Chroma Key to help you remove video background with or without green screen. I can even use it to remove video watermark.
If you need to make captions, CapCut offers you the automatic speech-to-text/text-to-speech processing. The exported videos from Capcut will be save in the location: /Videos/Camera/. The only downside that I find is lacking support for UHD/4K export.
Shotcut Linux App
Best for editing high-resolution videos.
Pros:
Powerful with many desktop app features.
No ads.
No watermark.
8K resolution support.
Cons:
Not so easy to use.
Shotcut is an open source video editor for Linux and Windows. Since Chromebooks can run Linux apps, it is also a powerful video editor for Chromebook.
This editor itself has most features that professional video editors have. You can resize, scale, trim, snap, rotate, and cut your videos, use image overlays and watermarks. You can add transition lumas and masks, etc.
However, Shotcut is not as easy to use as other video editor apps. You need take most steps to install it on your Chromebook. If you like to try it, you can refer to the steps bellow to install Shotcut app on Chromebook.
- Go to Settings to Enable Linux Development Environment.
- After the installation completes, run the following commands one by one.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install flatpak
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
sudo flatpak install flathub org.shotcut.Shotcut
- Find Shotcut app from Linux apps to edit videos.
Conclusion
These 5 free video editors are picked from many web apps, Android apps, Linux apps. For easy and quick video editing, Kapwing and WeVideo should do the job. If you don’t have a budget, CapCut is definitely your best choice. If you need to export videos in high resolution, then you can check the Linux app Shotcut.
As a desktop app, Shotcut does consume Chromebook resources. If your Chromebook is kind of old with low specs, you may run into problems.
my capcut videos wont export o my chromebook, help