A synced timeline is one group of files recorded at the same moment. A project can hold as many as you need, so give each guest, session, day, or scene its own synced timeline.

You build and sync your timelines in the editor, in the same place you cut. Nothing syncs until you ask for it, and nothing is analyzed until you ask for that separately.

Selects lines your files up two ways:

Selects picks whichever fits your footage, or you can choose yourself.

To create a synced timeline, work in the [Project] panel on the left of the editor, or start from clips on a draft timeline. There are four ways in, and you can also ask chat to do it for you.

You can also create a synced timeline from clips you already placed on a draft timeline.

If you already synced your footage in Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or DaVinci Resolve, import that timeline instead of syncing it again. Click the + button and choose [Import synced timeline].

Partial and repeated clips in a Premiere or Final Cut Pro project file now come in too.

Learn more in Import a synced timeline from your editing software.

To add more files to a timeline you already built, open that synced timeline first. Then select the files in the [Project] panel, right click, and choose [Add to (timeline name)]. [Remove from (timeline name)] takes them back out again.

Chat can build and sync your timelines for you. Open the [Assistant] panel, tell it what you shot, and it will group your files into synced timelines, place each angle on its own track, and run the sync.

Things worth asking for:

Chat chooses the sync method for you by reading your files, so you do not need to know whether your footage carries usable timecode.

When it finishes, it tells you which clips synced and which did not, with the reason for each failure. If the result looks wrong, undo it and try a different approach.

Not sure how to phrase a request? Read How to write prompts for AI editing in Selects for templates by use case.

To sync a timeline and get it ready to edit, open its tab and click [Sync tools] on the right of the timeline. You can also open the [Apps] tab at the top of the project panel and choose [Sync tools]. Sync tools walks you through 4 steps, in order:

[Audio waveform] matches the audio patterns across your files. It works without timecode and is the default. [Timecode] uses the timecode already recorded into your files. It is exact and faster, but every clip needs valid timecode that overlaps another track. If timecode sync is not possible for the timeline, Selects skips the choice and syncs by waveform.

Muting noisy tracks is a manual step, so Selects does not pick the tracks for you. Play the timeline and listen to each audio track. To hear one track on its own, click [Solo], the headphones icon in its track header. Solo only changes what you hear. When a track carries background noise, room tone, or voices you do not need, like the crew talking off camera, click [Mute], the speaker icon in its track header. The speaker icon shows an X while the track is muted, and clicking it again unmutes the track. This step matters because when you click [Update], Selects merges the transcripts of every file in the timeline into one and leaves out the tracks you muted. It then builds the topics from that merged transcript, so keeping only the clearest audio gives you a cleaner transcript and cleaner topics. When only the tracks you want are left unmuted, click [Mark as done] to open the [Update data] step.

A finished step gets a check mark. To sync again, for example after you move clips, click [Resync] in the [Sync timeline] step. Learn more about speakers in Set up speakers, cameras, and audio for multi-cam.

To sync only part of a timeline, select clips from at least two tracks, right click them, and choose [Sync selected clips], then [Sync with audio waveform] or [Sync with timecode]. This is useful when an earlier sync left a few clips behind.

When syncing finishes, Selects tells you whether everything lined up. If it did, the [Sync timeline] step gets a check mark. If some clips did not line up, the step shows how many, grouped as [Needs review] and [Not synced], with [Review] and [Resolved] buttons.

To fix them:

A video file with no audio track cannot be synced by waveform, because there is no sound to match against. If it carries no timecode either, Selects has nothing to work with and the clip stays unsynced no matter how many times you run the sync.

Line it up yourself using markers, which the timeline snaps to.

Snapping needs to be on, or the clip will not pull into place. It is on by default. [S] on the Premiere preset, or [N] on Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve, turns it on and off. Snapping helps whenever you are placing clips by hand, not just with markers.

To adjust the sync by hand, play the timeline back first and check the alignment. A sync that reports success can still be slightly out.

If a clip is off, select it and nudge it a frame at a time. The shortcuts below are for the Premiere preset. On the Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve presets, press [,] or [.] to nudge 1 frame, and [Shift] + [,] or [.] to nudge 5 frames.

You can also drag a clip left or right with the mouse instead. To move a clip to a different track, drag it up or down.

A synced timeline is where you get your footage lined up, not where you cut it. It holds your original clips at full length, so the editing tools are turned off there and your source alignment cannot be damaged by accident.

You can:

You cannot split or trim a clip on a synced timeline, and there is no floating toolbar. Those belong to drafts. The transcript panel shows the synced timeline's words, but you can't edit them there.

To start editing, create a draft from your synced timeline. A draft is a separate timeline that references your synced footage, so you can cut it any way you like and the alignment underneath stays untouched.

Select the synced timeline in the [Project] panel, right click, and choose [Add to new timeline]. From there you get the full editing toolbar, the transcript, and chat.

You can build as many drafts as you want from the same synced timeline, and none of them cost extra credits.

Learn more in Editing tools in Selects.

A draft does not copy your synced timeline, it references it. Adjust the sync, nudge a clip into line, or move it to another track, and the drafts built from it pick up the corrected video and audio straight away. There is nothing to re-sync or rebuild.

What does not change is the shape of the draft. Your clips stay where you put them, at the length you cut them, and your topics and subtopics stay as they are. Selects does not rebuild an edit you have already made.

So after a bigger change, like adding or removing files or moving clips a long way, open your drafts and check them. Re-place the sections that need it, or build a fresh draft from the updated synced timeline.

Removing a source is handled for you rather than left broken. If you take a video track out of the synced timeline, the drafts using it do not go blank. They fall back to the next available camera. If you remove an audio source a draft was using, the draft keeps whichever of its choices survived, and if none did it plays all the tracks again.

Analyzing and syncing happen independently, and the order is up to you. Build a synced timeline first and analyze afterwards, or analyze your files first and build the timeline later. Either way you end up in the same place. In [Sync tools], the [Sync timeline] step waits until at least one file in the timeline is analyzed. To sync before you analyze, select clips from at least two tracks, right click them, and choose [Sync selected clips].

You never analyze a synced timeline itself. Analysis runs on individual files, and a synced timeline picks up the results of whatever is inside it. Analyze a file after adding it to a synced timeline and its transcript reaches that timeline on its own. The timeline's speaker profiles and topics come from [Update data] in [Sync tools], so run it again after you analyze more files or change the timeline.

To analyze a file, hover it in the [Project] panel and click [Analyze]. A dialog headed [Analyze media for edit] opens first, showing what analysis covers, [Visuals] and [Transcript], what it will cost in credits, and how many credits you have left.

Learn more in How AI analysis works in Selects.

You can hand off your synced timelines without analyzing them at all. If the sync was all you came for, export a project file and carry on in your editing tool.

Your synced timeline arrives as a sequence with its angles and audio still lined up.

Learn more in Export your edit to editing software, or as a transcript or video.

When you have nothing to sync, skip synced timelines entirely. If you shot on one camera with no separate audio, like a vlog, there is nothing to line up. Hover each file in the [Project] panel and click [Analyze], and every clip still comes back with its own transcript, topics, and subtopics.

Selects supports 10 or more camera angles in a single project. It also syncs separate audio recordings, including lav mics, boom mics, and wireless feeds, with your video. If you shot with one camera but recorded audio separately, that works the same way.

Selects may not be able to sync a file if:

If a file will not sync, check that every camera was recording at the same time for at least a few seconds of shared audio. A clap or a counted slate at the top of a take makes syncing much easier.

Synced timelines you made before September 9th, 2026 are locked, so their clips cannot be moved, added, or removed. Selects tells you "This timeline is analyzed and can't be edited." You can still open one, play it back, and build drafts from it exactly as before.

Learn more in What changed in Selects on September 9th, 2026.

The Prep page has been removed, and everything it did now happens in the editor. Adding files to Selects creates the project for you. Your files land in the [Project] panel, and you choose what to sync and what to analyze from there. Learn more in What changed in Selects on September 9th, 2026.

Your footage does not sync automatically, because Selects waits for you to decide what belongs together. Group the files that were recorded at the same moment into a synced timeline, then open [Sync tools] and work through its steps. You can also ask chat in the [Assistant] panel to work out the grouping for you.

The cutting tools are turned off on a synced timeline on purpose, because that timeline holds your source footage at its original alignment. Cutting it would put your sync at risk. Selects tells you "You can't edit the main footage. Move clips to a draft timeline to make changes."
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Create a draft from the synced timeline and edit there instead. You can still move, delete, and disable clips on the synced timeline itself, which is everything you need to correct a sync.

An empty track stays on your synced timeline when you delete or cut the last clip on it. The track keeps its place, its name, and its settings, so the track numbers below it don't shift. To clear empty tracks, right-click any clip on the synced timeline and choose [Remove empty tracks].

If the synced timeline has no clips yet, the transcript panel shows "Sync your clips to see the transcript" with 3 steps: add the clips you want to sync, click [Sync clips] or sync them yourself, then keep the clearest audio and mute the rest. If it has clips, its files haven't been analyzed yet. Until they are, the transcript panel shows "Analyze the source files to see the merged transcript." Once they are, it shows the whole synced timeline's transcript. Topics and subtopics appear after you run [Update data] in [Sync tools]. Select clips from one file to read only that file, and click a word or topic to jump to it. You can read the transcript here but not edit it. To edit words or start cutting, create a draft from the synced timeline and open the draft.

That track is muted on the synced timeline the draft takes it from. A draft plays its audio from the synced timeline, so a track muted there is silent in the draft too, and its waveform is missing for that stretch. If the draft uses several synced timelines, only the parts that come from the muted one go quiet. Open that synced timeline, click [Unmute] on the track, and play the draft again. You don't need to rebuild the draft.

Usually not. A draft references the synced timeline rather than copying it, so a sync correction reaches every draft built from it straight away.
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What a draft will not do is re-cut itself. Clip positions and lengths, the cut structure, and the topics and subtopics all stay as they were. After a big change, such as files added or removed, or clips moved a long way, open your drafts, re-place what needs it, or build a new draft.
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If you take out a video track a draft was using, the draft falls back to the next available camera rather than going blank.

No, the order does not matter. Build a synced timeline and then analyze, or analyze your files first and build the timeline afterwards. If you analyze after building, the transcript flows into the synced timeline automatically, and [Update data] in [Sync tools] brings its speakers and topics up to date.

No, you never analyze a synced timeline. Analysis runs on individual files, and the synced timeline compiles the results of whatever is inside it. There is nothing extra to analyze. To build the timeline's speaker profiles and topics, run [Update data] in [Sync tools].

Yes, analyzing does not lock a synced timeline. Analysis runs on the individual files, and the timeline simply reflects what is inside it, so you can keep adding, removing, and nudging clips afterwards. Your existing drafts keep the cuts you already made, so check them after a big change.
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The exception is a synced timeline made before September 9th, 2026. Those were analyzed as one unit and stay locked. Learn more in What changed in Selects on September 9th, 2026.

Yes, a project can hold as many synced timelines as you need. You can build a single draft that pulls from several of them, and building more costs no extra credits once the files inside them are analyzed. To start a new synced timeline from one you already have, right-click it in the [Project] panel or right-click its tab, and choose [Duplicate]. The copy opens in a new tab, with _copy added to its name. It keeps the same transcript and speakers as the original. Older synced timelines are locked, so they can't be duplicated.

Yes, you can sync files you add after the project is created. Select them in the [Project] panel, right click, and choose [Sync], or add them to an existing synced timeline with [Add to (timeline name)]. This was not possible before, so if you have hit that limit in the past, it is gone. Learn more in Add media to an existing project.

No. You can use Selects as a normal editor and build a rough cut by hand without analyzing anything. You can also sync your files, hand off, and finish in Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or DaVinci Resolve.
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Analysis is not required for chat either. Chat recommends it, because a transcript and speaker profiles let it edit by what was actually said, but you can ask it to edit without analysis. It will work out an approach from the file information it has. Expect it to read your footage less precisely, and the edit to reflect that.
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Credits are used by two separate things: analyzing files, and using the built-in AI chat. So editing through chat without analyzing still uses credits for the chat itself. If you have Selects set up to run on your own Claude or ChatGPT plan, chat draws on that instead. Learn more in Which AI setup should you use in Selects?

Not by sight. Selects does not analyze the picture for syncing yet, so it will not spot a visual slate on its own. It does hear the clap, though, and that sharp sound gives waveform syncing a strong point to match against, so clapping is still worth doing. If a clip has no audio at all, you can use the clap visually by placing markers on the frame where the clapper closes. See Syncing videos with no audio above.

Either works and they do the same thing. Chat is faster when you have a lot of files or several shoots to separate, because it groups and places everything for you. Doing it yourself gives you direct control over which clip sits on which track, which helps when the grouping is unusual.

Yes, Selects saves the state from before the sync, so you can revert if the result looks wrong and try the other method or a different grouping.

No, Selects syncs from the audio waveform by default, so no timecode, slate, or clapboard is required. If your files do carry usable timecode, [Sync with timecode] is offered as an alternative and is faster.