Your first cut with Claude Code

This tutorial goes through the whole loop once: download, workspace, footage, connecting Claude Code, the first ask, turning on Pro, and export. Every other tutorial starts from here.

You need a Mac on macOS 15 or later with Apple silicon, Claude Code installed, and one video you recorded yourself. A talking-head clip of two to five minutes is ideal.

1. Install the app

Download BetterEdits from the download page, open the disk image and drag the app to Applications. It's signed and notarized, so it opens like any other app.

The first launch shows a short welcome tour that ends with the Pro offer. Click Continue without Pro for now. The editor needs no account, and you can start the trial later, when Claude Code asks for it.

2. Make a workspace

Click New Workspace. Give it a name (the kind of video you make works well: Reels, Tutorials, Clips) and a place. The default is your Movies folder. The workspace is one document in Finder, and every video you make lives inside it.

Then, in the sidebar under Media Folders, click Add another and pick the folder you record into. That folder becomes a library. Files in a library are used where they are and never copied.

3. Connect Claude Code

Choose Help › Connect an Agent… (or click the Agent button in the toolbar) and click Install next to Claude Code. That registers BetterEdits with Claude Code for your user, so the tools are available in every folder, and adds a permission rule so Claude Code runs them without asking each time. Nothing is written into your workspace.

Now open a terminal anywhere and start Claude Code:

claude

Claude Code reads the guide that comes with the server, so it already knows how videos are made in BetterEdits and what every tool does. It launches the app itself when it needs to, and asks it which workspace and video are open.

4. Ask for the first cut

Say what the video should be, and name the file.

Start a new 9:16 video called First Cut from take-1.mov in my footage folder. Cut out every pause longer than a second, then caption it in the default style.

If you're already on Pro, skip to step 6. If not, the first tool Claude Code calls is refused, because agents need Pro, and Claude Code tells you so and offers to open the sign-in.

5. Turn on Pro

Claude Code can't watch a video. To know what you said and when, BetterEdits has to analyse the file once. That reads the file and writes what it found next to it: every word with its timing, who said it, the pauses, the text on screen. Analysis is part of Pro, which starts with a 7-day free trial.

Claude Code will say something like this:

BetterEdits needs Pro for this. This Mac isn't signed in yet. I'll open the sign-in in your browser. Approve it there and I'll continue.

A browser tab opens on the dashboard. Create your account and start the trial. Your card goes on file and nothing is charged for seven days. The page then says the Mac is connected.

Back in the app, BetterEdits starts analysing the footage in your workspace by itself, this video's files first and then the library, newest first. The trial's 90 credits cover about 30 minutes of video. Claude Code waits for the file it needs, tells you what it found, and makes the cut. From now on you never have to think about analysis. Everything in the workspace is analysed as it arrives, and the account badge in the toolbar shows your plan and credits.

6. Export

Export it at HD, 30 fps.

The MP4 lands in your Movies folder and Claude Code prints the path. Exports never go inside the workspace.

What you have now

A workspace, a library of footage that is being analysed, Claude Code connected, and one exported video. The next tutorial does the talking-head cleanup properly: false starts, captions that look right, and the exact words to ask for each.