YouTube tests tool to make mini clips out of your popular videos

Robert Triggs / Android Authority

YouTube has long offered channel admins insights about their published videos, letting them effortlessly view relevant metrics. The streaming service displays audience retention graphs and key moments, helping them study their audience and see what clicks with them. To make it easier for creators to grab their visitors’ attention, YouTube is rolling out a feature that lets them chop popular videos and publish them separately.

YouTube has announced a new feature that lets creators find popular segments in their published videos and upload shorter versions independently. The tool is designed for long-form English videos and produces 16:9 clips that YouTubers can highlight individually. Based on the company’s description, it appears that the outputted videos will maintain their landscape orientation — rather than switching to 9:16 Shorts.

For the time being, the company is rolling out this fresh addition to a small number of users. If you publish videos in English, you can check your eligibility by heading to YouTube Studio Desktop. If enabled on your end, you should be able to spot a new “Create a video highlight” button when editing an uploaded file. Through it, the platform will automatically highlight the popular parts of your videos and help you trim them to publish them on their own.

This way, when viewers visit your channel for the first time, they can watch the short clips highlighting your funniest, most informative, or notable moments. This could give them a clearer overview of your content and help them decide whether watching the full videos is worth their time. Whether Google kills the feature or expands it to more users down the road remains to be seen.

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