Files

To create a video, we need to make media files available to our project by importing files into OpenShot. Most media file types are recognized, such as videos, images, and audio files. Files can be viewed and managed in the Project Files panel.

Note that imported files are not copied anywhere, they remain in the physical location they were before and are simply being made available to your video project. So, they must not be deleted or moved after adding them to your project. The “Show All”, “Video”, “Audio”, “Image” filters above the files allows you to only see the file types you are interested in. You can also toggle the view between details and thumbnails view of your files.

Import Files

These are all possible methods to import media files into OpenShot:

Name	Description
Drag and Drop	Drag and drop the files from your file manager (file explorer, finder, etc…).
Context menu (File Menu)	Right click anywhere in the Project Files panel and choose Import Files.
Main Menu	In the main menu choose: File→Import Files.
Toolbar button	Click the toolbar button in the main toolbar.
Keyboard shortcut	Press Ctrl-F (Cmd-F on Mac).

File Menu

To view the file menu, right click on a file (in the Project Files panel). Here are the actions you can use from the file menu.

Name	Description
Import Files…	Import files into your project
Thumbnail/Detail	Toggle the view between details and thumbnails
Preview File	Preview a media file
Split Clip…	Split a file into many smaller clips
Edit Title	Edit an existing title SVG file
Duplicate Title	Make a copy, and then edit the copied title SVG file
Add to Timeline	Add many files to the timeline in one step
File Properties	View the properties of a file, such as frame rate, size, etc…
Remove from Project	Remove a file from the project

Split Clip

If you need to cut a file into many smaller clips before editing, the Split Clip dialog is built exactly for this purpose. Right click on a file, and choose Split Clip… from the file menu. This opens the Split Clip dialog. Use this dialog to quickly cut out as many small clips as you need. The dialog stays open after you create a clip, to allow you to repeat the steps for your next clip. When you are finished, simply close the dialog.

#	Name	Description
1	Start of Clip	Choose the starting frame of your clip by clicking this button
2	End of Clip	Choose the ending frame of your clip by clicking this button
3	Name of Clip	Enter an optional name
4	Create Clip	Create the clip (which resets this dialog, so you can repeat these steps for each clip)

Please refer to the section Cutting & Slicing for more ways to cut and slice clips directly in the timeline.

Add to Timeline

In certain cases, you might need to add many files to the timeline at the same time. For example, a photo slide show, or a large number of short video clips. The Add to Timeline dialog can automate this task for you. First, select all files you need to add, right click, and choose Add to Timeline.

#	Name	Description
1	Selected Files	The list of selected files that need to be added to the timeline
2	Order of Files	Use these buttons to reorder the list of files (move up, move down, randomize, remove)
3	Timeline Position	Choose the starting position and track where these files need to be inserted on the timeline
4	Fade Options	Fade in, fade out, both, or none
5	Zoom Options	Zoom in, zoom out, or none
6	Transitions	Choose a specific transition to use between files, random, or none

Properties

To view the properties of any imported file in your video project, right click on the file, and choose File Properties. This will launch the file properties dialog, which displays information about your media file. For certain types of images (i.e. image sequences), you can adjust the frame rate on this dialog also.

#	Name	Description
1	File Properties	Select an image sequence in the Project Files panel, right click and choose File Properties
2	Frame Rate	For image sequences, you can also adjust the frame rate of the animation

Remove from Project

This will remove a file from the project. It will not delete the underlying physical file though, so removing a file from the project merely makes it unavailable for this video project.