ReelsBot
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Waitlist openComing soon to Mac

Drop your clips. Type a brief. Get a cut you edit like a doc.

ReelsBot is a Mac video editor for talking-head shorts and screen-recording tutorials. It transcribes on your Mac, removes retakes, stutters and dead air, and hands you a cut you fix by editing text.

Coming soon · Apple silicon · macOS 26+

See how it works
The ReelsBot editor: media, viewer, transcript, inspector and a timeline of eleven clips

How it works

Four steps. No scrubbing for the good take.

ReelsBot does the tedious part of editing talking-head video, then gets out of the way so you can make the calls.

  1. 01

    Drop clips

    Phone footage, screen recordings, a long take full of retakes. ReelsBot reads the audio, measures loudness, finds scenes and transcribes — on your Mac.

    • IMG_4021.MOV2:14
      Transcribed
    • Screen Recording.mov5:02
      Transcribing
    • take-2.MP40:48
      Measuring loudness
  2. 02

    Auto-edit with a brief

    Type what you want — length, orientation, what to keep — and press Auto-edit. The result lands on the timeline as one undo step.

    45s vertical short, cut retakesAuto-edit
    • plan
    • validate
    • compile
    • close pauses
    • tighten joins
    • check cuts
  3. 03

    Fix the cut like a doc

    The transcript is the timeline as text. Delete words to cut them, move sentences with ⌘X / ⌘V, or trim on the timeline with the mouse.

    Drop your clips in, type a brief, and then honestly just wait a bit, and fix the cut like a doc.

    ⌫Deleted 6 words · ⌘Z
  4. 04

    Export a verified MP4

    H.264/AAC with optional burnt-in captions, mastered to −14 LUFS, then checked automatically. An .srt comes along if you want it.

    • launch-short.mp41080×1920 · 0:44.6 · −14.0 LUFSVerified
    • SRTlaunch-short.srt38 captions

Features

A real editor, with the boring parts done for you.

Built for one job — turning raw talking-head and screen-recorded footage into a tight short — and built to be fast with a keyboard.

Retakes, stutters and dead air — gone

ReelsBot finds repeated takes, stumbles and long pauses in the transcript and removes them, keeping your speech in order. Nothing is deleted: every cut can come back.

So today I'm gonna— Today I'll show you how to um cut a short in one minute.

pause 2.4s Drop your clips in, type a a brief, and fix the cut like a doc.

Burnt-in captions

Bold outline or a plain plate, optional UPPERCASE, one to six words at a time — checked by OCR on export.

Cut the retakes

A real timeline, not a black box

Split with ⌘B, drag edges to trim — they snap to word boundaries and silences — and drag clips to reorder. The transcript and timeline are the same edit.

00:0000:1500:3000:45
01_hook
02_setup
03_demo
04_cta

Keyboard-first

J/K/L shuttle, frame steps, jumps between edits, select and blade tools. ⌘/ lists every shortcut.

  • ShuttleJKL
  • Split⌘B
  • Ripple delete⌫
  • Auto-edit⌥⌘E

9:16, 16:9 or native

Choose the framing for the whole video, then fit or fill each clip in the inspector.

9:16
16:9
Native

Mastered to −14 LUFS

Loudness normalised for YouTube by default; −16 LUFS or off if you prefer.

−14
LUFS

Exports that check themselves

After rendering, ReelsBot verifies streams, duration, loudness, frames, words and captions.

  • StreamsH.264 · AAC
  • Duration0:44.6
  • Loudness−14.0 LUFS
  • Frames vs. timelinematch

  • Show removed

    See every cut word struck through, and click one to bring its span back.

  • Planner notes

    A list of what the planner noticed: short fragments, kept stutters, retakes it left in.

  • Autosave & recovery

    Saves two seconds after every change. After a crash, you lose at most two seconds.

  • Subtitles

    Export an .srt next to the video, or on its own with ⇧⌘E.

  • Relink media

    Moved or renamed a clip? ReelsBot says which, and finds it again in a folder you pick.

  • retakectl CLI

    Everything the app does is also a command: auto-edit, edit, export and verify from scripts.

A closer look

One window, from raw clips to a verified export.

These are real screenshots of ReelsBot for Mac.

An auto-edited project with removed words struck through in the transcript and the brief in the inspector
After auto-edit: removed words are struck through, and one click brings them back.
The ReelsBot welcome window with a drop zone for clips and a list of recent projects
Start by dropping clips or a project. Analysis begins at once.
The viewer in 9:16 framing showing a burnt-in caption over a talking-head shot
Switch to 9:16 and preview burnt-in captions right in the viewer.

Bring your own AI

Your AI, your bill. Or none at all.

No subscription to us. Pick how ReelsBot plans your edits in the welcome guide — and change it any time in Settings ▸ AI.

Best results

Claude API

about $0.05–0.15 per short

Paste a key from console.anthropic.com. It is stored in your login Keychain, and you pay Anthropic directly for what you use.

Use your subscription

Claude Code

included in your Claude plan

Already logged in to Claude Code? ReelsBot plans through the claude command and shows whether it found it and you are signed in.

No AI at all

Offline

free, forever

Built-in rules keep all speech in order and remove repeated takes, stutters and long pauses. Nothing leaves your Mac.

AI settings: choose Auto, Claude API, Claude CLI or Offline, the model and the effort
Settings ▸ AI: pick the planner, the model and the effort.

Not sure? Leave it on Auto: the API if a key is set, else Claude Code, else offline. If Claude fails — offline, rejected key, overloaded — you get the offline cut and a banner that says why.

Private by design

Your footage never leaves your Mac.

ReelsBot is a native app, not a web uploader. Your clips stay on your disk, and so does everything ReelsBot makes from them.

  • Transcription runs on-device

    Apple’s speech model (or parakeet-mlx, if you choose it) turns speech into words on your Mac.

  • Only text goes to Claude

    If you use Claude, ReelsBot sends the transcript text and your brief. Never video, never audio.

  • No account in the app

    No sign-in, no cloud library. Projects are plain .retake folders in ~/Movies/ReelsBot.

Your Mac

Clips & renders
Audio & loudness
Transcription
Projects & exports
transcript text + brief
Claudeoptional · your key or plan

Requirements

  • Apple silicon

    Any Mac with an M-series chip.

  • macOS 26 Tahoe

    Or later. Uses Apple’s newest speech APIs.

  • Internet once

    To download the on-device speech model the first time.

  • AI optional

    An Anthropic API key or Claude Code for AI planning — or none.

Pricing

Pay once. Keep it.

ReelsBot for Mac is coming soon as a one-time purchase: no subscription, no credits. Join the waitlist and we’ll email you the day it launches.

Coming soon

ReelsBot for Mac

$49one-time

Planned launch price. No subscription.

One email when it launches. No spam.

What you’ll get

  • ReelsBot for Mac — yours to keep
  • Every 1.x update, from the same download link
  • Auto-edit, transcript editing and the full timeline
  • Captions, 9:16 / 16:9 framing, −14 LUFS, verified exports
  • The retakectl command-line tool
  • Works offline; bring your own Claude for AI planning
  • 14-day refund if it isn’t for you

Requires a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later.

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Something else? Write to support@reelsbot.co.

Your next short is already in your camera roll.

ReelsBot for Mac is almost ready. Join the waitlist and we’ll email you the day it launches.

Coming soon · Apple silicon · macOS 26+