7 Best YouTube Video Editor Software for Beginners and Experts

Nearly 1 billion hours of YouTube videos are watched globally every day, which raises the demand for professional YouTube video editor software. A YouTube video editor allows you to manipulate your clips by cutting, merging, trimming, enhancing, etc. to create stunning content on YouTube. To help you get high-quality videos for uploading to YouTube, we enlist the top 7 best video editing software for YouTube. Take a closer look at the best video editing app and edit your clips to make them more appealing to your audience.

Windows Video Editor - Free YouTube Video Editor for Windows

Price: Free

Operating System: Windows 10/11

Windows Video Editor, the successor to Movie Maker, is the default free video editing software YouTube on Windows 10 and Windows 11. It comes bundled with your PC and is very simple to get started. The YouTube video editor offers a 16: 9 and 4:3 aspect ratio to suit YouTube. Nice filters, music, text, motion, and useful 3D effects are good for YouTube clips. However, it’s a very basic Microsoft video editor. There are no worthy improvements since last time. You have many better choices than this, such as iTop Screen Recorder, and OpenShot.

OpenShot - Open-source Software for YouTube Video Editing

Price: Free

Operating System: Windows, macOS, and Linux

OpenShot is a well-received free and open-source video editor for YouTube. It’s cross-platform and available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. With an intuitive interface and simple timeline layout, it’s easy to use, even for those who don’t have much video editing experience. You can add quite a few transitions, and 14 effects(slow motion and time effects incl.) to suit YouTube videos. Other features like trimming, slicing, animation, and 3D animations are also included in the best video editing software for YouTube. Some features are hidden, making it difficult to dig out. You can’t open and import AVCHD files to the tool.

iTop Screen Recorder - Best YouTube Video Editor and Recorder

Price: Free

Operating System: Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7

iTop Screen Recorder is our top recommendation in the list of YouTube video editors. Its kind of versatility and stability are most welcome. The video editor supports HD/4K YouTube video recording and comes with a feature-rich basic video editor. It accepts a variety of video audio formats and multiple types of video codecs, including 4K UHD. You have access to a number of YouTube video editing tools, such as trimming, cutting, splitting, visual & audio effects, adding filters/text/subtitles, and many more.

One very welcome advantage over other software for YouTube video editing is in iTop Screen Recorder’s speed and performance. It won’t feel sluggish/lagging when applying effects and processing CPU-intensive 4K UHD clips. iTop Screen Recorder appears much more stable than other YouTube video editors do, thanks to GPU hardware acceleration technology. The interface looks attractive and intuitive which improved a lot after several major updates.

The following shows how to screen record on Windows and do post editing on your local and recorded YouTube videos.

Step 1. Free download the YouTube video editor & recorder for Windows, install, and run it.

Step 2. If you want to record and craft a YouTube video you’ve uploaded, open the video on YouTube, select a region to record it, and set the audio options to your needs. Click the red REC button to start recording YouTube the video. 

Optionally, if you need to edit a local clip before uploading on YouTube, open the Video Editor on the left tool menu directly and import the file.

Step 3. The recorded YouTube clip will be stored under My Creations. Click the Edit option.

Step 4. A new video editor window will pop up. Edit the video in a few clicks for YouTube as you want. Click the Save button to export the edited YouTube videos.

Also Read: How to Record Part of Screen >>

Blender - YouTube Video Editor Free for Professional YouTubers

Price: Free

Operating System: Windows 8.1/ 10/ 11, macOS 10.13+, Linux

Blender is a good tool to create 3D content for YouTube without paying anything. It’s open source and free. The YouTube video editing software offers advanced sculpting tools, visual effects, high-quality animation and rigging, and commonly used 3D features like animation, modeling, and texturing. The UI is not friendly for newcomers and can be a little awkward to start. This YouTube video editor requires a newer operating system. Windows 7 is no longer supported by Blender. When dealing with 3D content, it could crash unexpectedly.

PowerDirector - Simple Yet Full-featured YouTube Video Editor

Price: Starting from $99

Operating System: Windows 7 and above

The YouTube video editor is quite professional, coming with various tools to create compelling content for YouTube. It offers titles, transitions, effects for text, audio, and graphics, and nearly all the editing features you need. The new version of the best video editor for YouTube allows you to access royalty-free stock videos and images from Shutterstock with better color matching and keyframing. Compared with Photoshop, the app is far from professional and flexible. Beginners might find it a bit difficult to use the video editing program.

Final Cut Pro - YouTube Video Editor for Mac for All YouTubers

Price: Free trial (90 days)

Operating System: macOS 11.5.1 or later.

Final Cut Pro is a good YouTube video editor for macOS. You’ll find it very easy to crop, rotate, resize, trim, and do 3D skews on clips for YouTube. It has 100+ transitions and a collection of effects(250+ video and audio effects), color, and text tools. Pro-level features like 3D titling and Flow transition make Final Cut Pro stand out among free video editing software for YouTube. It’s worth noting that the tool for macOS has support for HDR content and 360-degree VR videos. HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Codec) is well received.

Shortcut- YouTube Video Editor Free Supporting Wide Formats

Price: Free

Operating System: Windows, macOS, and Linux

The shortcut is an open-source and cross-platform YouTube video editor free. It’s fully featured, covering both basic features and professional video editing functions. Basic features like keyframing, cutting and trimming, and adding transitions, titles, and video audio effects, are all a few clicks away. The export option also offers a preset for YouTube. There’s no thumbnail preview for effects/transitions. To edit 4K videos for YouTube, make sure your computer meets the CPU and RAM requirements to reduce preview lag.

The Bottom Line

Free or fee? That’s not the whole story. You can pick the YouTube video editor that suits your needs best from the list. Overall, iTop Screen Recorder shows more appreciating speed and performance. If you care about ease of use, interface, performance results, and screen recorder feature, iTop Screen Recorder is totally your thing. Free download the best YouTube video editor for Windows and make pro-level YouTube videos easily.