How to edit Reels, Shorts and TikToks in Premiere Pro

What changes when you edit Reels in Premiere Pro?

Three things change. The frame is 9:16. The app's buttons, username and description sit on top of your picture. And the edit has to hold attention within seconds. Cutting, sound and colour work the way they always do in Premiere.

Adobe now calls the app Adobe Premiere, the name for its family of desktop and mobile apps. This page says Premiere Pro because that is still what most editors search for. The workflow below runs in this order:

1. Build a vertical sequence at the frame rate you shot.
2. Pick the moment, or plan the whole short, and cut it tight.
3. Reframe every shot for 9:16.
4. Check text and faces against each app's interface.
5. Add captions you can read on a phone.
6. Export an MP4 and watch it on a phone before you post.

Platform rules differ. This page only quotes numbers from sources we checked on 3 November 2026. YouTube publishes detailed upload encoding recommendations. Instagram's and TikTok's video specs were not in the help pages available to us. Where a number would have to come from them, we say it is not published rather than guess.

How do I set up a vertical 9:16 sequence in Premiere Pro?

Make a new sequence with a frame 1080 pixels wide and 1920 high, at the frame rate you recorded. That is 9:16 at full HD width, and every step below assumes it.

The frame rate matters more than it looks. YouTube's upload guidance says content should be encoded and uploaded at the frame rate it was recorded. It lists 24, 25, 30, 48, 50 and 60 fps as common and says other rates are acceptable. Match the sequence to your camera or screen recording, and the export can stay at that rate.

Two habits save trouble later:

• Keep the 16:9 master separate. Build each vertical version as a new sequence and leave the long edit untouched.
• Name sequences by platform and number, such as Short 01 or Reel 01, so exports never get mixed up.

For an automatic route from a wide sequence to a vertical one, see our guide to Auto Reframe from 16:9 to 9:16.

On Windows, the mouzeclick workspace for Premiere Pro has a Sequence Resizer in its Motion lab. It offers 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, 4K, 720p or your own size. The workspace, and so the Resizer, is Windows only. The Mac app does not include it.

How do I reframe 16:9 footage to fill a 9:16 frame?

Scale each clip until it fills the full height, then slide it sideways to keep the subject in shot. The scale you need depends on the source size, and that decides how sharp the result looks.

In every case you keep under a third of the original width, so a wide two-shot rarely survives the crop. Plan for one face per frame, or use a split screen (see below). If the speaker moves across the frame, animate the position as well as the scale. 4K footage is the easiest case, because at 88.89% nothing gets enlarged.

mouzeclick tools for the same job:

• Studio's Timeline tab has two one-press tools: Fill the frame, and Zoom every other clip with "Keep faces in frame". Both work on Windows and Mac.
• The Premiere Pro Tool wheel has nine anchor positions, Fill frame (no black bars), punch in, slow zoom and a shake that dies away. It runs on Windows and Mac, and works only in Premiere Pro and After Effects.
• mouzezoom is built for screen recordings: you drag a box to zoom. It is an extension that runs on Windows and Mac.

How do I turn a long YouTube video into Shorts in Premiere Pro?

Find one complete moment, give it its own vertical sequence, and cut everything that comes before the point. Premiere's transcript speeds up the finding.

Adobe says Premiere uses AI to transcribe video on import, and that you can make a rough cut by copying and pasting text. Used for Shorts, that looks like this:

1. Import the long video so the transcript is built.
2. Read it for lines that stand on their own: a claim, a punchline, a direct answer to a question.
3. Copy that passage of text into a rough cut, as Adobe describes.
4. Move the result into a new 1080 × 1920 sequence and reframe it.
5. Trim the opening hard. Start on the sentence, not on the breath before it.
6. Repeat for each Short, one sequence each.

Then tighten the cut. In mouzeclick Studio, the Silence tab (Windows and Mac) does this in Premiere:

• Analyse reads the sound on your computer, draws the waveform and marks each pause.
• The defaults mark anything quieter than −40 dB that lasts 0.40 s or more, and keep 0.12 s around speech.
• Untick any pause you want to keep. Remove then cuts on every track, leaves a music bed alone and keeps a copy of the sequence.

Our Premiere Pro silence remover guide covers the manual method as well.

Two more tools run on Windows only:

• Retakes reads the transcript, strikes through every restarted sentence and keeps the last take. See our retake remover guide.
• AutoZoom, in the Premiere Pro workspace's Cut desk, writes zoom-in, hold and zoom-out keyframes from each clip's own scale. The defaults are a 115% punch-in every 4 s, a 1.5 s hold and a 0.18 s transition. Nothing is triggered by speech, and Clear Zoom takes the keyframes off. Our auto zoom guide shows the keyframes.

Where should text sit so the Reels or TikTok interface doesn't cover it?

Keep captions, titles and faces away from the edges where each app draws its buttons, username and description. The exact margins for Instagram and TikTok weren't in the sources we checked. Use an overlay while you edit, then check the upload on a phone.

mouzeclick Studio's Guides tab puts that overlay in Premiere Pro on Windows and Mac:

• 65 platform presets in 8 groups, showing the interface, the safe zone, centre lines, thirds and a grid.
• The overlay is one clip, named "⚠︎ GUIDES (mouzeclick)", with a Magenta label on its own track.
• You can save, export and import your own presets.

As an example, mouzeclick's TikTok preset uses margins of 130 px at the top, 484 px at the bottom, 140 px on the right and 44 px on the left. These are the values in mouzeclick's preset, not figures we found on TikTok's own pages. The bottom margin is about a quarter of the 1920 px height, so lower thirds belong higher in a vertical frame than they do in 16:9.

Exports are the part to get right. Hidden guides are not exported, and the tab warns you while the guides show. Hide them before you render, and if you aren't sure, look for that warning. Our safe zone guides for Premiere Pro page walks through the presets.

How do I add captions to Reels in Premiere Pro?

Transcribe, fix the words, then make them big and keep them inside the safe zone. Premiere can transcribe and translate on its own. mouzeclick adds styled captions on Windows.

Adobe says Premiere transcribes video on import and can translate captions in 18 languages. For vertical video, keep lines short: two or three words a line reads better on a phone than a full subtitle sentence.

mouzeclick Studio's captions are Windows only:

• They are written on your computer by Whisper, the open speech model.
• There are three models: Fast (60 MB), Accurate (190 MB) and Best (574 MB). Each downloads once, and after that your audio never leaves the machine.
• 47 languages plus automatic detection, with Translate to English. Hinglish comes out in Roman letters.
• Before the captions land, unsure words are underlined. You can use Replace all, and "Remember this fix" carries a correction into every new transcript.
• Output goes to Premiere's own caption track (Subtitles, Short, Social or Word by word), which you can edit in Premiere.
• Or choose "Styled on the video": 289 looks in 27 families. These are drawn as pictures timed to the words, on a video track above everything, so Premiere needs none of the fonts.

Our guide to auto captions in Premiere Pro compares Adobe's route with Whisper on your PC. On a Mac, use Premiere's own captions: mouzeclick's captions do not run there.

How do I make a split-screen Reel or Short?

Stack two shots, one above the other, each cropped to a 1080 × 960 half of the frame. You can do it by hand with crop and position values, or have mouzsplit build it as a real sequence.

Split screens solve the problem from the reframing table: a two-person shot loses most of its width in 9:16, but two stacked halves keep both faces. They suit reactions, interviews and a face over a screen recording.

• Our split screen guide for Premiere Pro gives the exact crop and position numbers for the manual way.
• mouzsplit builds split screens as a real sequence, with seven layouts and a new frame in 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 or 16:9.

One detail to check in mouzsplit: only the bottom copy keeps its sound. Make sure the clip you want heard is the bottom one. mouzsplit is an extension that runs in Premiere Pro on Windows and Mac.

What are the best export settings for Reels and Shorts from Premiere Pro?

Export an H.264 MP4 at the recorded frame rate, with AAC audio at 48 kHz. YouTube publishes the most detailed recommendations. We use them for Reels and TikTok too, because Instagram's and TikTok's specs were not published in what we checked.

From YouTube's recommended upload encoding settings, checked on 3 November 2026:

YouTube's SDR and HDR bitrates by resolution. Standard frame rates are 24, 25 and 30; high frame rates are 48, 50 and 60.

YouTube lists these by resolution and doesn't separate vertical video. For 1080 × 1920 we read the table against the 1080p row; that reading is ours. YouTube also says that for vertical or square uploads, the player adapts itself to the size of the video.

Premiere's own preset names weren't in the Adobe pages we could check. Our Premiere Pro export settings guide covers the export dialog. Before every render, hide the guide overlay and watch the first export on a phone.

How do I edit Reels faster in Premiere Pro?

Put the moves you repeat on every Short onto keys and mouse buttons you already touch. Vertical edits repeat the same few steps on every clip: scale, reposition, cut, caption and zoom.

What mouzeclick does in Premiere, on Windows and Mac:

• Per-app buttons. Mouse 4 can cut a clip in Premiere, switch tabs in Chrome and paste everywhere else. It changes the moment you switch windows.
• Eleven slots per button: tap, hold and move in four directions, a chord with another button, or hold and scroll.
• Options wheel (F8): 48 favourites per app, on three rings.
• Premiere Pro Tool wheel (F10 or a held right button): 112 tools in 12 segments, including the nine anchors, Fill frame and punch in from the reframing section. It works only in Premiere Pro and After Effects.
• Search effects: Enter applies an effect. Shift+Enter applies it and pins it to the Tool wheel.

Two extensions suit short-form pacing:

• mouzetrans puts 11 transitions on cuts, including Whip, Zoom in, Shake hit and Glitch jump.
• mouzebeat finds the beat and cuts clips to 1, 2, 4 or 8 beats.

Our page on Premiere Pro mouse shortcuts covers button layouts. The extensions page has a card for each panel.

Where mouzeclick fits (we make it)

We make mouzeclick, so read this section as ours. For Reels it handles the vertical chores around the edit: guides, reframing, silence, captions and split screens. Premiere still does the cutting.

To be plain about it: if you edit on a Mac and need captions, Premiere's own captions are your route, because mouzeclick's captions are Windows only. mouzeclick also needs an internet connection while it runs. If the connection drops, the shortcuts pause and the mouse works normally until it returns.

It costs $25 a month, $249 a year, or $499 once for one of the first 100 lifetime keys. See mouzeclick pricing. The trial lasts 3 days, needs no card, and every Premiere Pro and After Effects tool works fully. Mac users can follow the four-step Mac install. Apple has not notarized the app yet, so macOS asks you to allow it 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 (price, name change, mobile app, Text-Based Editing, caption translation), checked 3 Nov 2026
2. Adobe Creative Cloud plans, video and audio, checked 3 Nov 2026
3. Adobe Premiere free trial (Windows and macOS, 14-day cancellation), checked 3 Nov 2026
4. YouTube Help: recommended upload encoding settings, checked 3 Nov 2026

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