To split a video in DaVinci Resolve, go to the Edit page, press B, click the clip at the frame you want, then press A to get your normal pointer back. To cut at the playhead, use Timeline > Split Clips, which is Cmd+\ on Mac or Ctrl+\ on Windows in the default preset. Before either cut, look at which clips are selected and decide whether the linked audio should be cut as well. A split only adds an edit point. No frames disappear and Resolve doesn't write new media files. If the Edit page itself still feels unfamiliar, start with the DaVinci Resolve learning path. Here I'll stick to making clean cuts without losing track of linked audio or ripple scope.
Pick the method by how much of the timeline the cut should touch:
- Blade Edit Mode (B): click the cut position on a clip, and linked audio can come along
- Split Clips (Cmd+\ / Ctrl+\): cut at the playhead, with selection and track scope checked first
- Razor (Cmd+B / Ctrl+B): a separate cut command that has nothing to do with pressing B on its own
- Track locks: protect material that must stay untouched
- Linked Selection: choose whether linked picture and audio are selected together
- Scene Cut Detection: gets the cuts back out of a flattened finished video
How to Split a Video in DaVinci Resolve Using the Blade Tool
I reach for the Blade tool when it's easier to point at the cut than to park the playhead, because it cuts exactly where you click. Leave Linked Selection on for a normal picture-and-sound edit, and don't expect a click on the video to leave its linked audio alone.
On the Edit page:
- Open the Edit page and locate the clip. Lock unrelated tracks that must not change.
- Press B to enter Blade Edit Mode.
- Click the frame you want on the clip. Check the new boundary in both the picture and the linked audio.
- Press A to go back to Selection mode before you move or trim either piece.
Working through your first project? Our DaVinci Resolve beginner tutorial walks through the whole Edit page interface before you start cutting.
Find the frame with J, K and L, and zoom in only when the picture or audio change needs a closer look. The Blade cursor cuts wherever you click and ignores the playhead, so watch the blade indicator before you commit.
For a one-sided cut, decide what happens to the audio before you pick up the blade. Switch Linked Selection off for a moment when you want the picture cut without its sound, then check the link relationship afterward. For a synchronized cut through several tracks, the playhead method below gives you more control.
How to Split a Video with a Keyboard Shortcut
Keep three controls apart in your head. B puts the pointer into Blade Edit Mode. Cmd+B on Mac or Ctrl+B on Windows runs Razor in the standard preset, and Blackmagic’s editor training uses it after selecting a timeline clip. Cmd+\ or Ctrl+\ runs Split Clips at the playhead. If you've loaded another editing application's keyboard preset, check what each key does before you trust a tutorial.
- Press A for Selection mode and click the timeline clip you want to cut. Leave Linked Selection on if its picture and audio should stay together.
- Move the playhead inside that clip to the cut frame.
- Choose Timeline > Razor, or press Cmd+B on Mac / Ctrl+B on Windows.
- Look at the new boundaries before you move or delete either piece.
For Split Clips, use Timeline > Split Clips or Cmd+\ / Ctrl+\. A manual clip selection can narrow what gets cut, so the command won't necessarily cut every enabled track. To work by track instead, deselect clips first and set the track controls described below. Splitting a selected clip can leave its first half selected, so choose the piece you want to change next deliberately.
When a shortcut does nothing, click the timeline so it has keyboard focus, make sure the playhead is inside a clip and sitting in no gap, and check the track lock. Look for a stray selected clip elsewhere in the timeline as well. Then open DaVinci Resolve > Keyboard Customization and search for Split Clips, Razor or Blade Edit Mode. They're three separate actions, and a different preset or keyboard layout is often why a tutorial's shortcut does not work for you.
How to Cut Multiple Tracks at Once
For a track-wide cut, clear any manual clip selection, park the playhead and switch on only the timeline tracks that should take part. In current Resolve the red destination track selectors do this job. The blue source-patching controls are something else, and so is Sync Lock.
To split stacked clips at the same frame:
- Deselect clips by clicking an empty area of the timeline.
- In the track headers, enable the red destination controls for the video and audio tracks you want to cut; disable the others.
- Lock any track that has to stay untouched, such as a finished music bed.
- Place the playhead at the cut and choose Timeline > Split Clips.
- Check every boundary you meant to create, then put the track controls back the way they were.
An ordinary track lock protects its clips from editing even when that track is targeted. Muting a track only changes what you hear; it gives no editing protection at all. The toolbar's Position Lock is yet another control, so use the padlock in each track header when a track has to survive your cuts.
Following an older tutorial? Resolve 20.2 swapped the old Auto Track Selector icon for the red timeline track controls, and the Resolve 21.1 manual still describes them as the red destination column of the Source Track Selector. Sync Lock now decides on its own whether a track follows a ripple edit made on another track. Switching a red selector off therefore doesn't promise its clips will stay put during a later ripple delete. Blackmagic explains the change in its track selection and Sync Lock update. These commands follow the Resolve 21.1 manual.
Delete the middle section without moving the wrong clips
On the Edit page, a split leaves both pieces where they were. To take a section out, cut at its start and end, go back to Selection mode and click the unwanted middle piece. Make sure the right audio is selected with it. Delete or Backspace performs a lift edit and leaves a gap; Forward Delete moves the later material left and closes the gap.
Before a ripple delete, check Sync Lock on the other tracks. It decides whether they take part in another track's ripple edit, but it won't stop an edit made directly on that track. Lock anything that has to stay protected. Then play across the join and watch the picture and listen to the speech and any music cue as the gap closes.
A longer section doesn't need two blade cuts at all. Press I where the unwanted part starts and O where it ends, and Resolve can remove that whole range across several tracks. For a lift that leaves a gap, turn off the red destination control of every track whose media has to stay, then press Delete. For a ripple delete, turn off Sync Lock on the tracks to keep instead and press Forward Delete.
I'd use In and Out for long removals, because the whole range is highlighted before anything goes and there's no loose middle piece to select by mistake. Play across the join afterward, exactly as you would after a blade cut.
How to Rejoin Split Clips and Find Leftover Through Edits
A split on the Edit page leaves a through edit: a cut with continuous timecode on both sides, drawn as a dotted line on the clip. To rejoin the halves, select that dotted line and press Delete, or right-click it and choose Delete Through Edit. The Timeline menu's Join Clip command covers the same case, two clips separated by a through edit.
Leftover through edits are easy to lose in a long timeline. Open Index from the Edit page toolbar, stay on the Edit Index tab and choose Show Through Edits from its option menu to list every one; click an entry and the playhead jumps to it. I'd run that check before a timeline goes to color or export, because a correction or speed change added later to one half stays on that half, and the shot changes partway through.
How to Split Audio and Video Separately
Imported picture and production audio usually arrive linked, with Linked Selection on. For an ordinary cut, leave that relationship alone so both sides stay in sync.
Most one-off audio edits don't need a permanent unlink. Hold Option on macOS or Alt on Windows while you click the audio or video side to suspend linked selection for that one selection, or toggle the chain-link button for a moment. With only the item you want selected, place the playhead and choose Timeline > Razor to cut it. Check the result and turn Linked Selection back on when you're done. The audio splitting guide covers the cleanup steps that come next without breaking sync by default.
To change the link relationship permanently:
- Select the linked clip items and toggle Link Clips from the contextual menu
- Cut or move the audio and video sides independently
- Select the matching items and toggle Link Clips again when they should travel together
Unlinking only changes which items Resolve treats as belonging together. It won't fix or restore sync for you. After separate cuts or moves, check that the picture and audio still line up before you link them again. Switching the toolbar chain button back on does not create a missing link between unrelated pieces.
For J-cuts and L-cuts, keep the media linked, suspend Linked Selection and trim just the audio or just the video edit point. One side then starts or ends at a different moment while the underlying link stays intact.
Split Audio Clips on the Fairlight Page
On the Fairlight page, the cut follows track selection. Select each track that holds a clip you want to cut, park the playhead on the frame, then choose Timeline > Split Clips or Timeline > Razor (Cmd+\ / Ctrl+\ or Cmd+B / Ctrl+B). The scissors button in the Fairlight toolbar is blunter: it cuts every clip on an unlocked track under the playhead, so lock the music and effects tracks first if only the dialogue should change.
Fairlight doesn't draw through edits, so a cut made there looks like any other clip boundary. Switch back to the Edit page when you need to see the dotted line or remove it.
How to Split Clips on the Resolve Cut Page
The Cut page doesn't have the Edit page's Blade cursor. Put the playhead on the frame and use one of its Split Clips controls.
On the Cut page, any of these does the same job:
- Choose Edit Actions > Split
- Right-click the top playhead handle and choose Split
- Press Cmd+\ on macOS or Ctrl+\ on Windows
- Click the Split Clips scissors button in the Cut page toolbar
The Split Clips controls fit the Cut page's fast assembly style. Blackmagic's Cut page overview explains Source Tape, the dual timeline and the page's one-click editing model.
For detailed work track by track, move to the Edit page. The Cut page is quick for assembly, but the Edit page shows track headers, link controls and through edits far more clearly.
How to Split a Long Clip Into Subclips Before Editing
Sometimes the clip that needs splitting hasn't reached a timeline yet, like a long interview or a camera roll where several takes were recorded in one file. Subclips turn sections of that source clip into separate Media Pool clips, and the source file itself isn't changed. On the Edit page:
- Double-click the clip in the Media Pool to open it in the Source Viewer.
- Press I at the start of the section you want and O at its end.
- Choose Mark > Create Subclip, press Option+B on Mac or Alt+B on Windows, or right-click the jog bar and choose Create Subclip. Dragging from the Source Viewer into the Media Pool works too.
- Name the subclip in the New Subclip dialog, then repeat for the next section.
To take one section from a long recording without importing the whole file, start on the Media page instead. Single-click the clip in Media Storage, set In and Out in the viewer, then right-click the jog bar and choose Make Subclip, or drag the clip into the Media Pool, to add only that subclip.
Split a Clip at Its Markers
The Timeline menu has no Split at Markers command, but markers can still do most of that job. Open the long clip in the Source Viewer and press M at the first frame of each section; Cmd+M or Ctrl+M during playback adds the marker and opens its dialog, so you can name it as you go. Then set the Media Pool to List view, click the disclosure arrow beside the clip, select its markers and drag them into another bin. Resolve creates a subclip from each marker to the frame before the next one, and you can rename each subclip in the Metadata panel.
Markers already on the timeline? Check track controls and clip selection first, as described above, because Split Clips only cuts what's targeted. Then press Shift+Down Arrow to jump the playhead to the next marker and Cmd+\ or Ctrl+\ to split there, and repeat to the end. Clip and timeline markers both count, so the playhead stops at each kind.
For long interviews and rolling takes, I'd take the marker route on the source clip, because markers placed in one pass become separate clips in a single drag and the timeline only ever gets the sections you picked. Our markers and flags guide covers placing, naming and finding markers.
How to Automatically Split Clips Using Resolve Scene Cut Detection
Scene Cut Detection solves a different problem: pulling the edit points back out of a single flattened video that someone has already edited. You don't need it on ordinary source clips just to make manual cuts.
Resolve 21 gives you two scene-detection workflows:
Media page workflow: In Media Storage, select the file before it goes into the Media Pool, right-click it and choose Scene Cut Detection. Click Auto Scene Detect, review the detected transitions in the Scene Detect window, remove false cuts and add missed ones, and only then add the resulting clips to the Media Pool. This is the older workflow that runs before anything reaches a timeline.
Timeline version (DaVinci Resolve Studio only): Put the flattened file on a timeline. Lock the other video tracks, and set In and Out points if only part of it needs analysis. Then choose Timeline > Detect Scene Cuts. The DaVinci Neural Engine splits the clip right there on the timeline. This one is a Studio-only feature, so see the free vs Studio comparison if Neural Engine features weigh on your upgrade decision.
Step through every detected boundary before you trust the result. If a flash or a transition caused a false cut, select that through edit and delete it, and add any missed cut with Split Clips at the right frame. Detection only finds likely boundaries. It can't rebuild the original editor's project, transitions or source files.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the keyboard shortcut to split a clip in DaVinci Resolve?
Use Cmd+Backslash on Mac or Ctrl+Backslash on Windows for Timeline > Split Clips in the default preset. Cmd+B / Ctrl+B runs Razor, and B on its own enters Blade Edit Mode, where you click the cut position. Check manual clip selection, track targeting and linked audio before cutting; custom presets can map these commands to other keys.
How do I split a clip on the DaVinci Resolve Cut page?
Park the playhead on the frame, then press Cmd+Backslash on macOS or Ctrl+Backslash on Windows, choose Edit Actions > Split, right-click the top playhead handle and choose Split, or click the scissors button. The Cut page doesn't have the Edit page's Blade cursor.
How do I delete a section after splitting in DaVinci Resolve?
On the Edit page, cut at the start and end of the unwanted part, then select the middle piece. Delete/Backspace does a lift and leaves a gap. Forward Delete does a ripple delete and closes it. Check Sync Lock and protected tracks first, because a ripple can move other tracks too.
Can I split audio and video separately in DaVinci Resolve?
Yes. Switch Linked Selection off for a moment, or Option-click on Mac / Alt-click on Windows to select one side, then make the edit. Check that only the piece you meant to change has changed. Link Clips changes the underlying relationship, and turning Linked Selection back on does not relink pieces that are no longer associated.
Is Scene Cut Detection available in the free version of DaVinci Resolve?
The classic Media page Scene Cut Detection workflow runs before you import the file into the Media Pool. Timeline > Detect Scene Cuts is the Studio-only Neural Engine workflow. Both exist to recover edit points from a flattened program; for ordinary manual cuts, use the Blade or Split Clips.
How do I rejoin two split clips in DaVinci Resolve?
If the two halves still come from continuous source media, select the dotted through edit and press Delete, or right-click it and choose Delete Through Edit. On the Cut page, Join Match Edit Clips rejoins matching continuous halves. Clips from unrelated sources can't be joined this way.
