Premiere Pro Trimming and Editing Shortcuts
Once footage is on the timeline, most of an editor's actual work is trimming and rearranging it, and Premiere's editing shortcuts — inherited and refined from decades of non-linear editing conventions — are built to support that without forcing constant trips to a menu. Two more shortcuts round out the trimming toolkit: precisely trimming an edit point to the playhead's exact position, and the deliberate, gap-leaving counterpart to Ripple Delete for situations where an empty space is actually wanted.
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ripple delete (lift and close gap) | Shift+Delete | Shift+Delete | Lifts the selected clip out entirely and pulls every clip later on that same track (and, if the clip has linked audio, the corresponding audio clip on its track too) forward to close the gap, keeping the sequence contiguous — a plain Delete instead leaves a black or silent hole exactly where the clip used to sit. |
| Insert edit (from Source Monitor) | Comma (,) | Comma (,) | Slots the currently marked Source Monitor clip in at the playhead on the active track, sliding everything downstream later by exactly the clip's duration so nothing already cut into the sequence gets lost or overwritten. |
| Overwrite edit (from Source Monitor) | Period (.) | Period (.) | Drops the marked Source Monitor clip right at the playhead, replacing whatever was already sitting in that stretch of the timeline instead of pushing it out of the way. |
| Extract (ripple delete with gap close across all tracks) | ' (apostrophe, varies) | ' | Removes the selected range and closes the resulting gap across all tracks simultaneously, a multi-track version of ripple delete useful for cleanly removing a synced section spanning video and audio together. |
| Trim edit to playhead | Q (previous edit) / W (next edit) | Q / W | Trims the nearest edit point (either the one before or after the playhead, depending on which key is pressed) so that its boundary lands exactly at the current playhead position, automatically closing any resulting gap. |
| Lift (remove without closing gap) | Delete or Backspace | Delete or Backspace | Removes the selected clip from the timeline while leaving an empty gap exactly where it was, as opposed to Ripple Delete which automatically closes that gap — the right choice when the gap itself is intentional rather than something to be removed. |
Ripple Delete (Shift+Delete) pulls a selected clip out and immediately closes the hole it left by sliding everything downstream on that track earlier — a plain Delete, by contrast, empties the clip's content but leaves the gap sitting open exactly where the clip used to be. This distinction matters constantly during a rough-cut pass, where you're typically trying to shorten a sequence's total runtime rather than leave deliberate gaps.
Insert (,) and Overwrite (.) are the two fundamental ways to place a clip from the Source Monitor onto the timeline at the playhead, and the difference between them is the single most important distinction for understanding Premiere's editing model. Insert pushes existing content later to make room, preserving it but shifting its position — appropriate when adding new material into an existing sequence. Overwrite instead replaces whatever's already there for the duration of the new clip, leaving content before and after untouched in position — appropriate when deliberately swapping out a section rather than expanding the sequence.
Extract (often bound to the apostrophe key, though this varies by keyboard layout and version) performs a ripple delete across every track simultaneously rather than just the currently selected track, which matters for removing a synced section of video and audio together without throwing them out of sync relative to each other — a common need when cutting out a mistake or pause that spans both picture and sound.
Marking In and Out points (I and O) ahead of an Insert or Overwrite sets up what editors call three-point editing — with an In and Out marked on the source clip and just one point (either In, Out, or simply the playhead position) marked on the sequence, Premiere calculates the fourth point automatically, which is the standard professional workflow for precisely controlling exactly which portion of source footage lands at exactly which point on the timeline.
Q and W trim the nearest edit point directly to wherever the playhead currently sits — Q trims the edit before the playhead, W trims the edit after it — automatically closing any gap that trim would otherwise create, similar in spirit to Ripple Edit but triggered from playhead position rather than requiring you to first select the Ripple Edit tool and manually drag an edge. This is a fast way to snap an edit point exactly to a frame you've already found via J/K/L scrubbing or frame-stepping, without needing to switch tools first.
Lift (plain Delete or Backspace) is the deliberate counterpart to Ripple Delete, removing a clip's content but leaving the resulting gap exactly where it was rather than automatically closing it. This matters specifically when the gap itself serves a purpose — reserving space for content you'll add later, or deliberately creating a pause in a sequence's pacing — situations where Ripple Delete's automatic gap-closing behavior would actively work against your intent by collapsing a space you wanted preserved.
Extend Edit to Playhead (E) offers a third trimming behavior distinct from both Ripple and simple gap-preserving trims: it extends or trims the selected clip's nearest edge directly to wherever the playhead currently sits, which is faster than manually dragging an edge to match a playhead position you've already carefully parked at an exact frame you want the cut to land on.