Instagram’s ‘First Draft’ trims your Reels clips

First Draft takes care of the busywork of video editing. Instagram adds feature that automatically trims clips for Reels. News Apps Instagram adds feature that automatically trims clips for Reels First Draft takes care of the busywork of video editing.

The feature, called First Draft, can automatically trim silences and pauses from clips, letting the bulk of your editing time focus on making creative decisions rather than cleaning up videos. To use First Draft, Instagram says you just need to select clips from your Reels Gallery and tap "First Draft." The feature then analyzes your clips, trims them appropriately and then lays your clips out in a timeline where you can play them back. From there, you can edit them further in the app or post them straight to your feed or Story.

Meta says you'll also be able to use First Drafts immediately after you shoot new footage on Instagram. View this post on Instagram Meta launched Edits, a standalone video editing app, in April 2025, with a variety of AI-powered editing features that were supposed to make Reels easier to produce. AI isn't mentioned at all in the company's announcement of First Draft, and that's apparently because the feature doesn't use the technology,.

Instagram is making one of the most tedious parts of creating Reels easier. The company announced Tuesday in a Threads post that it’s rolling out “First Draft,” a new editing feature that automatically trims selected video clips and removes pauses, pulling together the best moments into an initial cut.

Instagram is launching a new Reels-editing feature that automatically trims your video clips to focus on the highlights. The feature, called First Draft, is rolling out to Instagram's iPhone app and provides a "starting point" that you can build upon with other edits, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

Instagram says the process can produce […]. Instagram’s ‘First Draft’ feature aims to make editing Reels less tedious.

An example shared by Instagram shows […]. Instagram’s ‘First Draft’ trims your Reels clips for you.

Instagram says the process can produce a first pass in under 10 seconds, potentially saving creators significant editing time while making video creation more approachable for people who don’t have much experience with editing software. Instead of manually working through every clip, creators can start with an automatically assembled draft and refine it from there.

Tech News Creators Instagram’s ‘First Draft’ trims your Reels clips for you The Reels-editing feature automatically cuts out pauses across your clips. The Reels-editing feature automatically cuts out pauses across your clips.

First Draft is initially rolling out on iPhone. Users can access it directly from Instagram’s camera while recording or from the Reels gallery after selecting multiple clips.

Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. An example shared by Instagram shows a user selecting multiple clips for a reel and then tapping the “First Draft” button.

Image Credits: Instagram The feature itself isn’t revolutionary. Similar automated editing tools already exist in products such as Adobe Firefly’s Quick Cuts and CapCut’s Auto Cut.

From there, Instagram analyzes the clips — each of which is more than a minute long — before trimming them down to eliminate pauses and showcase the most important parts. Instagram then combines the snippets into a reel that’s ready to edit and share.

But Instagram’s decision to build the functionality directly into its own app gives creators less reason to move footage into a separate editor.