How to Begin Editing GoPro Videos on Mac

You have some exciting, interesting, or educational footage on your GoPro. Now it’s time to put that footage together to create a film. What do you do? You could turn to the likes of Final Cut Pro, but that might be overkill for your needs (on top of which, it’s a pricey piece of software). If your needs align with the simple and cheap, GoPro has free software called GoPro Quik that makes creating basic videos a breeze.

Quik is an app that’s available for macOS, Android, Windows, and iOS. The desktop version of Quik only offers a bare minimum of features (whereas the Android and iOS versions offer quite a few more features). In fact, Quik does most of the editing for you, so you don’t have to know anything about editing video to make this work. So if that sounds like something you want to try, let’s see how this basic video editor is used on a Mac.

Importing Video Clips

The first thing to do is import your video clips. Fortunately, the Quik app has this feature built right in (so there’s no need to worry about using yet another application). Here’s how to import video clips into Quik.

1. Connect your GoPro to your Mac via the supplied cable.

   

2. Click the Launchpad icon in the Dock.

   

3. Type Quik and click the Quik launcher.

   

4. Make sure your GoPro camera is selected in the left sidebar.

   

5. Click Import Files.

   

6. Allow the import to complete.

After Quik finishes the import, you’re ready to create.

Creating a Video

With your files imported, here’s how to create a video:

1. On the Quik main window, click Media.

   

2. In the resulting window, click Create.

   

3. In the Media section, select a highlight from a clip by clicking on the start point and then on the end point.

   

4. Repeat the above step on the next clip. Do this until you’ve selected start and end points for all the clips you want added to the video.

At this point, all of your highlights will have automatically been added to the new video (in the order you selected start/end points). You will also notice Quik has also auto-added a piece of music for your clip. You can change that music by following these steps:

1. Click on the song title.

   

2. Click the play button associated with a piece of music for a sample.

   

3. When you find a song you like, select it and click ADD TO VIDEO.

By default, videos will add a Quik-branded outro. To delete that:

1. Click Select Outro.

   

2. Click No Outro.

   

3. Click Apply.

Once you’re finished, click Save. In the resulting window, give your video a name, select the quality, and click Save.

Once the video has saved, it will be listed in the View window, where you can right-click the video and opt to View, Share, Edit (Open in Create Mode), or View the new file in Finder.

And that’s all there is to creating a simple video from your GoPro camera footage.