Set up Wabcut the first time
The Home screen, the five-page welcome and a short performance check get you from a fresh install to editing.
The first start opens with a short launch animation (Settings > Appearance turns it off, and Reduce motion skips it), then the Home screen.
Start from the Home screen#
The Home screen, "Bring your edit into Wabcut", has five cards:
| Card | What it does |
|---|---|
| "One-click import" | "Drop a timeline here, or choose a file" from Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro: Final Cut Pro XML, FCPXML, OpenTimelineIO, EDL and (experimental) Premiere .prproj, nested and multicam sequences included. A report says what was carried, approximated or dropped. See Move timelines between editors. |
| "Recent projects" | Your recent projects, and "Open…" for others. |
| "New gaming video" | "Drop a game recording here" (or "Choose a recording…"). The sequence matches the recording's size and frame rate, and every audio stream gets its own named track. See Edit a long gaming video. |
| "New project" | A name, a location and a sequence preset ("1080p", "4K UHD", "Vertical 9:16", "Square 1:1", "Custom"), then "Create". |
| "Learn" | "Import from other editors", "Keyboard shortcuts" and "What's new". |
"Explore the demo project" (top right) closes Home and opens the demo project. Esc does the same.
Go through the welcome#
The welcome follows, five short pages. "Skip" or Esc leaves it at any time.
- "Coming from Premiere?" Wabcut uses Premiere's keys, Premiere's edits, and your own look. Choose "Let's go".
- "Your keys": choose "Premiere Pro defaults", or "Import my key set (.kys)…" for your own Premiere
shortcuts. In Premiere, choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and save your set; Wabcut reads that
.kysfile. - "Where you start, and your look": the workspace to open in ("Edit", "Color", "Audio" or "Captions"), an accent colour, and "Dark" or "Light".
- "AI on your terms": every AI feature is optional. Local models run on your computer, and cloud models use your own key. See Use AI on your computer or with your own key.
- "You're set": choose "Take the tour", "Keyboard Trainer" or "Start editing".
Run the performance check#
A short performance check is offered once. It measures decoding and encoding on your GPU, takes about ten seconds, and nothing leaves the computer. It then recommends proxy and preview settings: choose "Use these settings" or "Keep my settings".
You can run it again from Settings > "Media & cache…".
Come back to any of this later#
Everything here can be reopened from Help, at the bottom of the left rail: "Welcome and setup…", "Take the tour", "Keyboard Trainer…", "What's new" and "Keyboard shortcuts…".
See also
- Install WabcutDownload Wabcut for Windows, or try the Linux and macOS previews, and get past the first-start warnings.
- Get to know the Wabcut windowThe File menu, the title bar, workspaces you arrange yourself, the left rail, Settings and the timeline's tools.
- Keyboard shortcutsUse Premiere Pro's default shortcuts in Wabcut, change any key or import your own Premiere key set, and practise with the Keyboard Trainer.