🎬
Multicam and sync prep
Staircase the selection so every clip has its own track, run Synchronize, then un-staircase and carry on. Two clicks either side of the job.
One-Click Timeline Tools
Shortcut
A small bar of buttons you keep docked, where every button does one tedious job instantly. Adjustment layers, freeze frames, QC passes, staircasing, un-nesting, loops, wiggles, frame grabs. No dialogs, no menu digging.
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✦ Totally free
Shortcut is free and awesome. No subscription, no payment, ever. While you're here, be sure to check out our pro tools, all included with Filmit Studio.
Included with Filmit Studio
No account and no API keys needed. Installing Shortcut is one click in Filmit Studio.
Watch the Demo
See Shortcut in Action
Every button on the bar, what it does, and the Shift variant hiding behind it, in Premiere Pro and After Effects.
The Problem
The small jobs eat the day.
None of these tasks are hard. They are just fiddly, repetitive, and buried three menus deep, and you do them over and over on every project.
🔢
Menu digging for two-second jobs
New adjustment layer, size it, drag it above the selection. Add frame hold, move it up a track, trim it. Every one of these is a chain of clicks for a result you already pictured.
✓ Shortcut: one button, the finished result
🎫
Prep work before the real work
Spreading clips onto their own tracks so Synchronize will run. Packing them back down afterwards. Cracking open a nest to fix one thing inside it.
✓ Shortcut: staircase, un-staircase, un-nest, all one click
🔍
Finding problems the hard way
Scrubbing the whole timeline hunting for a gap, a clip that went offline, or a layer someone disabled and forgot about. Usually right before delivery.
✓ Shortcut: QC scan marks every one of them
The Buttons
Eleven shortcuts. One strip.
Three work in both apps, three are Premiere Pro, five are After Effects. The bar shows you the ones your current app can run, and the badge on each card tells you where it lives.
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Adjustment layer
One adjustment layer sized to your selection, ready for the grade or the effect.
Shift for one per clip or layer. Ctrl in Premiere for one over every cut.
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Freeze frame
Holds the frame under the playhead on the track above. The original is left untouched.
Shift to hold all the way to the end of the clip or layer.
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QC scan
Drops a marker at every problem it finds: gaps, offline or missing media, and disabled clips or layers.
Shift to clear the markers again.
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Staircase
Sends each selected clip to its own track so Synchronize can do its job. Times never change.
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Un-staircase
Packs the selected clips back down onto the lowest free tracks when you are done.
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Un-nest
Replaces a nested sequence with the clips that were inside it, in place.
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Un-precompose
Explodes a precomp back into the comp with timing and layer order preserved.
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Loop
Loops the selected footage or precomp layers out to the end of the comp, with no stutter at the seam.
Shift for a ping-pong loop instead.
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Wiggle
Drops a wiggle expression onto the selected properties, or onto Position if you selected none.
Shift to clear expressions off the selection.
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Reverse keyframes
Flips the selected keyframes in time, eases included, so the move plays backwards.
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Screenshot
Saves the current frame beside your project as a PNG or a JPEG.
Shift to reveal the file where it landed.
Deep Dive
Small bar, second layer.
Eleven buttons, but more than eleven jobs, and you decide which ones are even on screen.
Hold Shift
Every button has a second job.
Hold Shift as you click and the button does the related version of the same thing. Same muscle memory, twice the coverage, nothing extra to learn.
- Adjustment layer: one per clip or layer instead of one over the lot
- Freeze frame: hold all the way out to the end of the clip
- QC scan: clear the markers you just made
- Loop: ping-pong instead of a straight repeat
- Wiggle: strip expressions off the selection
- Screenshot: reveal the file where it saved
In Premiere, Ctrl-clicking the adjustment layer button drops one over every cut in the selection.
Shift Variant
⇧ Shift
Click: hold 3 seconds
Shift-click: hold to clip end
Shift-click: hold to clip end
Your Bar, Your Buttons
Switch off what you never touch.
Every shortcut has an on/off toggle in settings, so the bar only shows the ones you actually use. Turn off eight of them and you have a three-button strip that fits in a corner of your workspace.
The defaults are yours too, so the buttons behave the way you would have set them up by hand anyway.
- Freeze frame hold length
- Adjustment layer padding, and cut length for the per-cut version
- Wiggle frequency and amount
- Screenshot format, quality, and where the file lands
Settings
Adjustment layer
Freeze frame3s
QC scan
Staircase
Wiggle5 / 50
ScreenshotPNG
Both Apps
One bar, whichever app you opened.
Shortcut is a panel in Premiere Pro and a panel in After Effects, and it knows which one it is sitting in. Premiere gets the sequence tools, After Effects gets the comp tools, and the three shared buttons work the same in both.
- Adjustment layer, freeze frame, and QC scan in both apps
- Staircase, un-staircase, and un-nest in Premiere Pro
- Un-precompose, loop, wiggle, reverse keyframes, and frame grabs in After Effects
- One set of settings, so it behaves the same on both sides
Host Aware
Premiere Pro
After Effects
Use Cases
Where it earns its dock space.
The bar is small on purpose. It is there for the jobs that come up on every single project.
✅
Delivery QC
Run a QC scan before you export. Gaps, offline media, and disabled clips all get a marker, so you fix them instead of discovering them in the render.
🎨
Grading and finishing
One adjustment layer over the selection, or one per cut, without leaving the timeline. No dialog, no dragging it into place.
🔁
Loops and background elements
Loop a texture or a precomp out to the end of the comp, ping-pong it if it needs to breathe, and move on to the next layer.
🎮
Motion cleanup in After Effects
Un-precompose to get at what is inside, reverse a set of keyframes to play a move backwards, wiggle a property when a shot needs life.
📷
Stills for clients and thumbnails
Grab the current frame as a PNG or JPEG saved beside your project, then Shift-click to reveal it and send it on.
Setup
Docked and working in under a minute.
This is the whole setup. No keys, no account, nothing to configure before you start clicking.
1
Get Filmit Studio
The free desktop app for Mac and Windows. It installs and manages your plugins.
2
Install Shortcut
One click from the tools list. No subscription, no payment, ever.
3
Open the panel
Launch Premiere Pro or After Effects and open Shortcut from the Window menu.
4
Dock it and click
Park the strip beside your timeline. Trim it down in settings if you only want a few buttons.
FAQ
Common Questions
Everything you need to know about Shortcut.
Yes. Shortcut is out now and it is free. Download Filmit Studio, our free desktop app for Mac and Windows, then install Shortcut from the tools list in one click. No subscription and no payment, ever.
Premiere Pro and After Effects, on Mac and Windows, as a dockable panel. The bar adapts to whichever app it is open in: three shortcuts work in both, three are Premiere Pro only, five are After Effects only.
Yes, completely. No subscription and no payment. Download Filmit Studio (also free), and when Shortcut ships you install it in one click. A Studio subscription unlocks our pro tools, but Shortcut itself will cost nothing.
Shift-clicking runs the related version of that button. Shift on the adjustment layer gives you one per clip instead of one over the selection, Shift on freeze frame holds to the end of the clip, Shift on QC scan clears the markers, Shift on loop makes it ping-pong, and Shift on screenshot reveals the saved file. In Premiere, Ctrl-clicking the adjustment layer button places one over every cut.
Yes. Every shortcut has an on/off toggle in settings, so you can pare the bar down to just the two or three you reach for. Settings is also where you set the defaults: freeze hold length, adjustment layer padding, wiggle frequency and amount, and screenshot format and destination.
In Premiere it markers up gaps in your video tracks, offline or missing media, disabled clips, and stub clips. In After Effects it markers up missing footage, disabled layers, and layers sitting entirely outside the comp. Nothing is moved, trimmed, or deleted, and Shift-clicking the same button clears the markers again.
No. The hold is placed on the track above and your original clip is left exactly as it was, so you can slide or delete the freeze without touching the edit underneath it.
No. Shortcut only does things you could have done by hand, so the results are ordinary adjustment layers, frame holds, markers, keyframes, and expressions. The project opens and renders anywhere, with or without Shortcut installed.
In After Effects, yes: each shortcut is wrapped in a single undo group, so one Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z puts things back. Premiere has no equivalent, so a shortcut that rearranges several tracks there can take a few undo presses to walk back.
Get Started
How to get Shortcut
Three steps and you are up and running with Shortcut, right inside your editor today. Totally free.
1
Download Filmit Studio
Grab the free desktop app for Mac or Windows. It installs and manages your plugins.
2
Install Shortcut
One click from the tools list. No subscription, no payment, ever.
3
Add your free key
Paste a free API key in the plugin, Studio, or your dashboard, and start creating.