How to change clip speed in After Effects

Which method changes clip speed in After Effects?

Use time-stretching when the whole clip should run at one new speed. Use time remapping when the speed changes inside the clip, and Reverse when it should play backwards. Each one is a layer command with its own shortcut in Adobe's After Effects keyboard shortcut reference, which we checked on 3 November 2026.

Adobe lists the two time-stretch shortcuts as a pair, with the In point first and the Out point second. It uses the same order for the trim shortcuts, Alt+[ for the In point and Alt+] for the Out point. So Ctrl+Shift+, sets the In point and Ctrl+Alt+, sets the Out point. You need the Out point version most often, because it leaves the clip's first frame where it is.

Adobe's help article on time-stretching and time-remapping gave us no readable steps when we checked. This page therefore sticks to the shortcuts Adobe publishes and quotes no other menu paths. To find any of these commands by name, search the Command list in the shortcut editor (Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts). The full table is on our After Effects keyboard shortcuts page.

How do I speed up a clip in After Effects?

Make the layer shorter by time-stretching its Out point toward the In point. A 10-second clip stretched to end 5 seconds after its start plays twice as fast. Stretched to 2.5 seconds, it plays four times as fast.

1. Press V to activate the Selection tool, then click the layer in the Timeline panel.
2. Press I to go to the layer's In point and O to go to its Out point. This shows you how long the clip runs now.
3. Work out the new length: the current length divided by the speed you want. For 2x, that is half the length.
4. Move the playhead to the frame where the faster clip should end. To land on an exact frame, Page Down or Ctrl+Right Arrow (Command+Right Arrow on a Mac) steps forward 1 frame.
5. Press Ctrl+Alt+, (Command+Option+,). The Out point moves to the playhead and the layer is stretched to fit, so its frames now play in less time.
6. Press Spacebar to preview, and press it again to stop.
7. If the comp now runs past the end of the clip, press Ctrl+Alt+B (Command+Option+B) to set the work area to the selected layer. Then press Ctrl+Shift+X (Command+Shift+X) to trim the composition to the work area.

To keep the clip's last frame where it is and move the start instead, park the playhead on the new start and press Ctrl+Shift+, (Command+Shift+,). To slide the finished layer back to the start of the comp, press Alt+Home (Option+Home). Alt+End (Option+End) moves the layer so its Out point sits at the end of the comp.

Doing the same job in Premiere? Our guide to changing clip speed in Premiere Pro covers ramps and freeze frames there.

How do I slow down video in After Effects?

Make the layer longer the same way: park the playhead past the current Out point and press Ctrl+Alt+,. A clip stretched to twice its length plays at half speed. Three times its length plays at one-third speed.

1. Check the comp is long enough. A 6-second clip slowed to half speed needs 12 seconds. Select the composition and press Ctrl+K (Command+K) to open Composition Settings, then lengthen it there if needed. Our page on extending a layer, comp or last frame goes through that part in more detail.
2. Select the layer and press I to see where it starts.
3. Move the playhead to the frame where the slowed clip should end. If the clip should fill the comp, End (or Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow, Command+Option+Right Arrow on a Mac) goes to the end of the composition.
4. Press Ctrl+Alt+, (Command+Option+,).
5. Press Spacebar to preview.

How smooth the result looks depends on how many frames the footage has. Say you slow 30 fps footage to half speed in a 30 fps comp. Each source frame has to fill two comp frames, so motion steps. Slow 60 fps footage to half speed in the same comp and there is still one new source frame for every comp frame. If a shot is meant to be slow motion, record it at a higher frame rate than the edit.

How do I time remap in After Effects?

Select the layer and press Ctrl+Alt+T (Command+Option+T) to enable time remapping. Then press RR to show only the Time Remap property and keyframe it. Time remapping is the method for ramps: normal speed, a fast burst, then normal again, all inside one layer.

1. Select the layer, or several layers. Adobe lists the shortcut as enabling time remapping for selected layers.
2. Press Ctrl+Alt+T (Command+Option+T).
3. Press RR. The Timeline shows only Time Remap, so the other properties stay out of the way.
4. Move the playhead to where the ramp should start and add a keyframe on Time Remap. Add another where the ramp should end.
5. Drag the keyframe that ends the fast section closer to the keyframe before it, and that stretch plays faster. Drag it further away, and it plays slower.
6. Select the keyframes around the ramp and press F9 for Easy Ease. Shift+F9 eases in only. Ctrl+Shift+F9 (Command+Shift+F9) eases out only.
7. Press Shift+F3 to switch between the Graph Editor and layer bar modes and see the shape of the ramp. For exact numbers, Ctrl+Shift+K (Command+Shift+K) sets the velocity of the selected keyframes.
8. Press U to show every property with keyframes. This tells you whether anything else on the layer was keyed by accident.

Ctrl+Alt+H (Command+Option+H) sets the selected keyframes' interpolation to Hold or Auto Bezier. In layer bar mode, Ctrl+Alt+K (Command+Option+K) sets interpolation for the selected keyframes. To remap a group of layers with one set of keys, precompose them first with Ctrl+Shift+C (Command+Shift+C) and remap the precomp. The After Effects Easy Ease guide covers the F9 shortcuts and their fixes in more depth.

How do I reverse a clip in After Effects?

Select the layer and press Ctrl+Alt+R (Command+Option+R). Adobe names the command "Reverse selected layers in time", so it acts on every layer you have selected.

1. To reverse only part of a clip, split it first. Put the playhead on the cut and press Ctrl+Shift+D (Command+Shift+D). Check a layer is selected, because with nothing selected the command splits every layer.
2. Select the piece to reverse and press Ctrl+Alt+R.
3. For a slow rewind, keep it selected, park the playhead past its Out point and press Ctrl+Alt+, to stretch it longer. For a fast rewind, park the playhead before the Out point instead.
4. Use [ or ] to move the layer so its In or Out point lands on the playhead, then preview with Spacebar.

Splitting and trimming have their own guide: how to cut and trim video in After Effects. It includes Alt+[ and Alt+] (Option+[ and Option+]) for trimming to the playhead.

Why is my After Effects speed shortcut not working?

Most failures come from one of three things: no layer is selected, the wrong panel has focus, or another shortcut has taken the key. Work down this list.

• Nothing selected. Click the layer in the Timeline first. Reverse and time remapping act on selected layers.
• The wrong panel is active. Panel shortcuts work only when their panel is active. When a panel shortcut uses the same keys as an application shortcut, the application shortcut does nothing while that panel has focus. Click in the Timeline panel and try again.
• The key was reassigned. Open Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and hover over the key. The tool tip shows the full command name and whether it is an Application or a Panel shortcut.
• Your keyboard isn't a supported layout. In that case After Effects shows the U.S. English keyboard in the editor. Check which key it treats as the comma for the time-stretch shortcuts.
• F9 does nothing on a Mac. Adobe notes that shortcuts using F9 to F12 may conflict with operating system shortcuts. Reassign the macOS ones, which Adobe points to as the Dashboard and Exposé shortcuts in macOS Help.
• The layer is locked. Ctrl+L (Command+L) locks selected layers. Turn off the layer's lock in the Timeline before retiming it.
• The slowed clip stops early. The comp ends before the layer does. Lengthen it in Composition Settings (Ctrl+K).
• RR shows nothing. Time remapping isn't enabled on that layer yet. Press Ctrl+Alt+T first.
• The retime went wrong. Ctrl+Z (Command+Z) undoes it and Ctrl+Shift+Z (Command+Shift+Z) redoes it. Save with Ctrl+S (Command+S) before a big remap, and keep a copy of the layer with Ctrl+D (Command+D).

How do I change the time remap shortcut in After Effects?

Open the shortcut editor with Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, or press Ctrl+Alt+' on Windows or Option+Command+' on macOS. Search the Command list for the command, then press the new keys in its shortcut column.

1. Open the editor. It has three parts: the Keyboard layout, the Command list and the Key modifier list. The After Effects Default preset shows first.
2. Read the colours. Gray keys have no shortcut, purple keys hold application-wide shortcuts, and green keys hold panel-specific shortcuts. To see panel shortcuts, switch to the panel view from the Command drop-down list.
3. Search the Command list for "time remapping", "time-stretching" or "reverse".
4. Select the command and type the shortcut in the text field, or click in the shortcut column and press the keys with their modifiers. You can also drag a command onto a key in the Keyboard layout.
5. If a conflict warning appears at the bottom, click the command highlighted in blue to jump to it. Then use Undo or Clear in the lower right.
6. Click Save As to keep your set.

Some keys can't be moved. After Effects does not let you reassign A, AA, E, EE, F, FF, L, LL, M, MM, P, PP, R, RR, S, SS, T, TT, U or UU. RR for Time Remap and U for keyed properties therefore stay where they are. The full walkthrough is on changing keyboard shortcuts in After Effects.

Can I put time remap and reverse on mouse buttons?

Yes. Any shortcut on this page can go on a mouse button. The mouzeclick mouse app does this per app, on Windows and Mac, with any mouse your computer sees: wired, wireless or Bluetooth, using up to five standard buttons plus scroll and tilt. There is no driver.

Each button has eleven slots: tap, hold and move in four directions, a chord with another button, or hold and scroll. One button can carry most of a retiming job. Here is one layout for After Effects:

• Mouse 5, tap: Ctrl+Alt+,, to stretch the Out point to the playhead.
• Mouse 5, hold and move up: Ctrl+Alt+T, to enable time remapping.
• Mouse 5, hold and move down: Ctrl+Alt+R, to reverse.
• Mouse 5, hold and move left: a macro that presses R twice, to show Time Remap.
• Mouse 4, tap: F9, for Easy Ease on the ramp keys.

On a Mac, record the same actions with Command and Option. The buttons switch the moment you change windows, so Mouse 5 can do something else entirely in Chrome. You can record any shortcut yourself, and it sits in the picker beside the 309 built-in shortcuts on Windows, 44 of which are for After Effects. For less-used commands, the Options wheel holds 48 favourites per app on three rings of 12, 16 and 20.

One clash to know about: mouzeclick's Orbit switch opens with F9 by default, the same key as Easy Ease. Any key or mouse button can open the Orbit switch, so give it another trigger if you ease with F9. For the general setup, see remapping mouse buttons on Windows 11 or remapping mouse buttons on a Mac.

Where mouzeclick fits (we make it)

We make mouzeclick, so read this section as ours. Two of its After Effects extensions touch clip speed. Both run on Windows and Mac.

• mousecut puts an editor's timeline over the open comp, with layers shown as clips on tracks. Its Rate stretch tool changes a layer's speed when you drag the layer's edge, which is the drag version of the time-stretch shortcut. It has ten editing tools, G closes gaps, and each edit is one undo step. It needs mouzeclick installed on the same computer. See every item on the mousecut feature page.
• mouzekit is sold as 28 After Effects tools in 7 groups, and each tool is one undo step. Its Time remap tool turns on time remapping with keys only at the start and end, ready to retime. It does not pick a speed for you: you still move or add keys as in the time remap steps above. The full list is on the mouzekit feature page.
• mouzetime is in the plan as "slow motion, speed ramps and frame-rate changes, in beta". That is all we publish about it for now.

To set them up, press Install After Effects bridge on the mouzeclick app's Tool wheel page and restart After Effects. Then open the panels from Window › Extensions. All 22 are on the extensions page, and Mac users can follow the four-step Mac install guide. The parts of mouzeclick that are Windows-only are the two workspaces, captions, Retakes, cloud sync and in-app updates. None of them is needed for retiming.

Where After Effects' own tools are the better pick: for one clip at one steady speed, the time-stretch shortcut is the quickest route and costs nothing beyond After Effects. The extensions earn their place when you retime many layers on an editor-style timeline, or set up remaps over and over. The trial is 3 days with no card, and every Premiere Pro and After Effects tool works fully. After that, mouzeclick is $25 a month, $249 a year, or $499 once for one of the first 100 lifetime keys.

Questions people ask

Sources

Checked on 2026-11-03. Prices and features change: each link goes to the maker's own page.

1. Adobe: After Effects keyboard shortcuts reference (checked 3 Nov 2026)
2. Adobe: After Effects product page and US prices (checked 3 Nov 2026)
3. Adobe: Creative Cloud plans, India prices (checked 3 Nov 2026)
4. Adobe: After Effects free trial (checked 3 Nov 2026)

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