Every Premiere Pro cutting shortcut: add edit, ripple, close gaps

What is the Premiere Pro shortcut to cut a clip?

The shortcut to cut is the key your copy binds to Add Edit, the command that splits clips at the playhead. Two more commands finish the job. The Razor tool splits a clip wherever you click. Ripple Delete removes a clip and pulls everything after it to the left, so no gap is left.

Adobe publishes the default keys in its official list of default keyboard shortcuts. When we checked it on 3 November 2026, we could not read the table, so this page does not print key letters. A wrong key costs more than a missing one: you press it mid-edit and something else happens.

Your own copy has the final say anyway. Shortcut sets can be changed, and a set brought over from another editor or an older machine may not match any list on the web.

To read your own keys, open Premiere's keyboard shortcut editor, find each command by name and note the key next to it. Adobe covers the editor on its keyboard shortcuts pages. We walk through it in how to change Premiere Pro keyboard shortcuts, and the rest of the keys are on our full Premiere Pro keyboard shortcut list.

Which Premiere Pro cutting shortcuts should you learn first?

Learn six commands: two ways to split, one way to remove, two trims to the playhead and one way to close every gap. Together they are the core of a talking-head, podcast or vlog rough cut. The table names the command to look for, a sensible mouse slot and where it runs. Search each name in your own shortcut editor to find its key.

The order matters more than the keys. Play to the mistake, split, then either ripple delete the bad piece or ripple trim to the playhead. Check the join, then move on to the next mistake.

When the edit is done, the gaps left by lifts and deletes can be closed in one go. That step is covered further down. If you cut by pause rather than by ear, the guide to jump cuts explains when and how a hard cut works.

What do the ripple, rolling and slip tools do in Premiere Pro?

All three trim, but each moves something different. A ripple edit moves a cut point and shifts everything after it. A rolling edit moves only the cut point between two clips. A slip changes which part of the source a clip shows, without moving the clip at all.

These are the standard editing meanings of the three terms. We could not read Adobe's trimming pages on 3 November 2026, so check the tool names and keys in your own copy.

Ripple edit

Drag the end of a clip with a ripple edit and every clip after it moves by the same amount. The sequence gets longer or shorter, and no gap or overlap opens. Use it when a take runs long and you want the rest of the edit to follow. It is the trim version of ripple delete.

Rolling edit

A rolling edit works on the join between two clips. One clip gets longer by exactly the frames the other loses, so the sequence length does not change and nothing downstream moves. Use it to nudge a cut onto a beat or a breath without disturbing anything else, or to build a J-cut or L-cut by rolling only the picture edit.

Slip edit

A slip keeps a clip in the same place with the same length, but slides the source underneath it. You see a different few seconds of the same shot. Use it on b-roll that sits in the right place but shows the wrong moment.

Look up each tool's key in your shortcut editor before you rely on it. A mistyped tool key leaves you dragging with the wrong tool.

How do I ripple delete in Premiere Pro?

Select the clip you want gone and run Ripple Delete. The clip disappears and everything after it moves left to fill the space. Running it from a key or a mouse button keeps your eyes on the timeline.

1. Play to the bad take and split it out with Add Edit on both sides.
2. Click the piece you want gone.
3. Run Ripple Delete with your key, or with the mouse button you gave it.
4. Play across the join to check the cut, and look at the tracks below. Music and b-roll on other tracks are where sync slips.
5. If something moved that should not have, undo and try again before you make the next cut.

On a long interview, that is a lot of separate cuts. If you are removing pauses, the Premiere Pro silence remover guide covers a tab that marks every pause first. Its Remove button then cuts on every track and leaves a music bed alone.

How do I put Premiere's cut shortcuts on mouse buttons?

This section covers mouzeclick, our own mouse app (we make it). It puts shortcuts, macros and gestures on any mouse, per app. Mouse 4 can cut a clip in Premiere, switch tabs in Chrome and paste everywhere else, and it changes the moment you switch windows.

1. Install mouzeclick on Windows 10 or 11, or macOS 12 or newer (Apple Silicon or Intel), and paste your key. On a Mac, follow the four Mac install steps, including Accessibility and Input Monitoring.
2. Press each mouse button once. The settings page is built around the buttons your mouse really has: up to five standard buttons, plus scroll and tilt. It works with any mouse your computer sees, and there is no driver.
3. Open the Premiere Pro profile. Each app gets its own profile, and the editors come with ready-made ones.
4. Give Mouse 4's tap the Add Edit key. Pick it from the built-in library if it is there: 309 shortcuts on Windows, 153 of them for Premiere Pro. Otherwise, record the key your copy uses as your own shortcut.
5. Give Mouse 5's tap the Ripple Delete key.
6. Hold Mouse 4 and move left for Ripple Trim Previous, and right for Ripple Trim Next.
7. Press Add editing gestures to fill the directions you left empty: up plays, down splits, left undoes and right moves one frame forward.

Each button has eleven slots: tap, hold and move in four directions, a chord with another button, or hold and scroll. Any button can be the gesture button, left and right included. A quick tap still clicks, and holding and moving runs the gesture.

Cut commands you use less often can go on the Options wheel (F8). It holds 48 favourites per app on three rings of 12, 16 and 20. The Premiere Pro Tool wheel (F10 or a held right button) holds 112 tools in 12 segments, including all sixteen label colours and all eight marker colours, which helps when you mark selects before you cut. The Tool wheel is on the Premiere Pro and After Effects tools page, and our Premiere Pro mouse shortcuts guide covers the rest of the profile.

mouzeclick does not change DPI, polling rate or lighting; those stay with your mouse maker's software. There is one plan with everything included, shown with the price and the 3-day trial.

How do I close every gap in a Premiere Pro sequence at once?

Press Close all gaps in the Timeline tab of mouzeclick Studio, and every gap in the sequence closes in one press. It runs in Premiere Pro on Windows and Mac.

Gaps pile up when you lift clips instead of ripple deleting them, or when you pull takes out while keeping sync. Close all gaps is built for the end of that pass. The same tab holds Unnest for nests, multicam and merged clips, and Spread and Close synced for lining up separate recordings around Premiere's own Clip › Synchronize. It also has Copy frame, Paste image, Fix pitch, Adjustment layer and Fill the frame, one press each.

Undo mouzeclick edit takes back the last Unnest, Spread or Close. The full list of Studio's 111 items is in the Studio feature library.

Can Premiere Pro cut by text, silence or beat instead of by hand?

Yes. Adobe's Text-Based Editing transcribes video on import and lets you build a rough cut by copying and pasting text. mouzeclick adds cuts by audio level, by restarted sentence, by beat and by marker. Which parts run on a Mac is spelled out below.

• By text (Adobe). Adobe describes Text-Based Editing as transcribing your video on import, after which you make a rough cut by copying and pasting text.
• By silence (mouzeclick Studio, Windows and Mac). Analyse reads the sound on your computer, draws the waveform and marks each pause. The defaults are quieter than −40 dB, pauses from 0.40 s, and 0.12 s kept around speech. Untick a pause to keep it. Remove cuts on every track, and a copy of the sequence is kept.
• By retake (Windows only). Retakes reads the transcript and strikes through every restarted sentence, keeping the last take. One press removes them and keeps a copy. See the Premiere Pro retake remover.
• By preset (Windows only). The Cut desk in the Premiere Pro workspace has Silence & Cut, with Dialogue −48, Podcast −44 and Aggressive −38 dB presets, and Remove + ripple or Cuts only. The Mac app does not include the workspaces.
• By beat (Windows and Mac). mouzebeat finds the beat, adds markers on every beat, every 2, every bar or the hits, and cuts clips to 1, 2, 4 or 8 beats.
• By marker (Windows and Mac). mouzemark turns markers into edits, sequences or subclips.

None of these replace the six cut commands. They handle the repetitive pass, and you finish by hand with Add Edit and the ripple trims. For the wider routine, see how to edit faster in Premiere Pro.

Why does my cut shortcut do nothing in Premiere Pro?

Usually the key in your copy is not the key you read about, or a mouse app is sending it to the wrong place. Check your own shortcut editor first, then work through the mouzeclick checks below.

1. Check the key in your shortcut set. Find the command in Premiere's keyboard shortcut editor. If the key there differs from the one on your button, re-record it.
2. Check the profile. mouzeclick buttons work per app and change the moment you switch windows. A key set in the Premiere profile only fires while Premiere is the active window.
3. On Windows, check elevation. Apps running as administrator ignore apps that are not elevated. If Premiere runs as administrator, pick Restart as administrator in the mouzeclick tray menu.
4. On a Mac, check permissions. Turn on mouzeclick under Accessibility and Input Monitoring, then quit it and open it again.
5. Check the connection. mouzeclick needs the internet while it runs. If the connection drops, the shortcuts pause and the mouse acts normally until it returns.
6. Check for a stolen combination. If another app keeps stealing a key combination, a mouzeclick hotkey can block it.

If a button misbehaves mid-edit on Windows, Ctrl+Alt+F12 stops mouzeclick at once.

Questions people ask

Sources

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

1. Adobe Premiere product page: name change, membership, price, Text-Based Editing (checked 3 Nov 2026)
2. Adobe Creative Cloud plans: Adobe Premiere US$22.99/mo annual, billed monthly (checked 3 Nov 2026)
3. Adobe Premiere free trial: macOS and Windows, 14-day cancellation (checked 3 Nov 2026)
4. Adobe Help: Premiere default keyboard shortcuts
5. Adobe Help: Premiere keyboard shortcuts

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