← Back to blog ← Blog

How to Clip YouTube Videos into Shorts in 2026

March 20, 2026  ·  5 min read

There are over 800 million videos on YouTube. Most of them contain moments that would perform brilliantly as Shorts — but finding and extracting those moments the manual way takes hours per video.

The manual approach (and why it is slow)

The traditional workflow: download the video, import to a desktop editor, scrub through to find good moments, cut each one, manually reframe from 16:9 to 9:16, add captions, export each clip separately, upload. For a 60-minute video, this is 3–5 hours of work.

The AI approach with HaikuClip

1. Paste the YouTube URL into HaikuClip — no download needed, the AI fetches the video directly
2. AI transcription — the full audio is transcribed word-by-word using our AI
3. Virality scoring — every segment is scored based on energy, hook strength, keywords and position
4. Automatic clipping — the top 10 moments are cut and reframed to 9:16 automatically
5. Review & edit — use the waveform editor to extend or trim any clip with precision
6. Download — get clips in the right format for YouTube Shorts, with AI-generated titles ready to copy

Total active time: under 10 minutes for a 60-minute video.

What makes a clip work as a Short

Not every segment of a YouTube video will translate to a successful Short. The best-performing clips share these characteristics:

• A strong, surprising or opinionated statement in the first 5 seconds
• One single, complete idea — not a summary or overview
• A natural resolution within 60 seconds
• High energy or emotional resonance in the speaker's delivery

Titles that rank on YouTube Shorts

Unlike regular YouTube videos where the thumbnail drives clicks, Shorts are often discovered through search and the Shorts feed. A keyword-rich title significantly improves discoverability. HaikuClip generates an AI-suggested title for each clip — review it and add the keyword you want to rank for if it is not already included.