From the downloadto the first project.

Download and install

KoraCut exists for macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows 64-bit and Linux (AppImage). It is the same app on all three: same modules, same shortcuts, same project file. A project started on a Mac opens as is on a PC.

The app is free and open source, with no account to create. What you need to be comfortable: 4 cores, 8 GB of memory and 2 GB of disk. With 8 cores, 16 GB and a graphics card, preview and export go faster, but KoraCut is tuned first to run without lag on a modest machine.

The shortcuts in this documentation are written for Mac. On Windows and Linux, ⌘ reads Ctrl and ⌥ reads Alt. The letters do not change.

The Download pageThe license and the software's origin (in French)

The first launch

On first launch, KoraCut opens the home screen: a New project button, the recent projects (empty for now) and the symbol at the top left, which always brings you back to this screen. No account, no key to paste, nothing to set before you begin.

The interface is dark by default. The light theme and the other themes are in the View menu, and in the command palette (⌘K), which gives access to every action in the app by name: type "cut", "export" or "theme", and the command shows up.

New project: choose the kind of video

⌘N opens the New project window. It does not ask for a resolution or a frame rate: it asks what kind of video you are making. Two steps.

1. The kind

A search field ("ad" finds "Social media ad"), the 13 families as chips, and one card per kind with the format thumbnail (16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5), the frame rate, the ideal length and a one-line description. One click on the card is enough.

2. Your project

Everything is already set from the guide: the name, the format, the frames per second, the named tracks ("V1 Wide shot · V2 Inserts · A1 Voice · A3 Music"), the planned export (preset and loudness) and three editing tips for this kind. Change what you want, then "Start editing".

Every project gets ten video tracks and ten audio tracks, whatever the kind: the names from the guide take the first ones, the others arrive collapsed and wait. A track named "Music" turns orange in the timeline. The kind is kept in the project: it is what prepares the export and offers the target platform's overlays in the monitor.

"Free project" creates a project without a kind, with the usual settings. "Advanced settings…" opens the full profile window, for those who need it.

The guide to the 126 kinds of video, the one the window uses (in French)Edit: the timeline, the monitor and the export

The seven modules

The top bar carries the seven modules, from left to right. Shift+1 brings you home, Shift+2 to Shift+8 open each of them. A module is a panel layout designed for one task, on the same project and the same timeline.

Edit

The timeline, the bin, the monitor, the inspector. This is where you spend most of your time.

Color

Color wheels, curves, LUTs, before and after view.

Audio

The mixer, the levels, automatic music ducking under the voice, composing.

VFX

Effects, keying, masks, keyframes.

Photo

Still image retouching: cropping, exposure, text.

Illustration

The vector canvas: shapes, text, artboards.

Export

Rendering, presets per platform, the render queue.

Motion (HyperFrames compositions) is not an eighth module: it is a panel of Edit and VFX, because its elements live in the same timeline as your shots.

The Motion module

The workspace, on a laptop and on a monitor

KoraCut picks the Edit layout from the shape of your screen. On a laptop or a 16:9 monitor, three blocks at the top (Media and effects, the video, the Inspector with Speed, Subtitles and Agents as tabs) and the timeline alone at the bottom, full width: with ten video tracks and ten audio tracks collapsed, fourteen tracks fit on the screen of a 16-inch laptop. On a very wide monitor (21:9 and up), the timeline shares the bottom with the mixer.

A vertical project (9:16) changes the picture: the video goes to the right at full height, media and inspector top left, the timeline bottom left, against the video.

Nothing is fixed. You move the panels, turn them into tabs, "Save this workspace…" keeps your arrangement under a name, "Reset workspace" restores the shipped layout. The Workspace menu, "Screen" section, forces a variant if the automatic choice does not suit you.

Updates

When a new version is ready, KoraCut tells you in a banner of the bin: "A new version of KoraCut is ready", with an Update button. It saves your project, quits and reopens the new version on the same project. Nothing happens behind your back, and nothing happens without your click.

The release notes are on the blog, and the repository keeps the full history.

The blog (in French)