PRO EDITOR, ZERO LEARNING CURVE
Simple enough on day one. Still there on the day you outgrow simple.
Most editors make you choose between a toy you will outgrow in a month and a flight deck you will never finish learning. Zella opens as a timeline you can use in the first minute, and an Advanced Tools switch reveals keyframes, bezier curves, live luma scopes, Color Match and feathered masks only when you go looking for them. Nothing you learn gets thrown away, and nothing you have not learned is in your face.
Zella for Mac is out now on the Mac App Store, and Zella for iPhone is out now on the App Store. One Pro purchase covers both. See the mobile app →
WHAT CHANGES FOR YOU
- 01
Depth that stays out of the way
One switch reveals the professional layer. Until you flip it, none of it is on screen to intimidate you, and the timeline stays the four or five controls you actually needed today.
- 02
A mistake costs one keystroke
Ripple delete closes the gap for you, drag-trim and drag-to-reorder behave the way your hands expect, and undo goes back fifty steps. Autosave and versioned snapshots mean a crash costs seconds rather than an afternoon.
- 03
The edit sounds edited, not chopped
J and L cuts let the audio lead or trail the picture, which is the whole difference between a cut a viewer notices and one they do not. Per-clip volume and detachable audio are free.
ON BOTH PLATFORMS
What it does on each device.
On Mac
Keyboard-driven: B to cut and the full shortcut set, plus ripple delete, drag-trim, drag-to-reorder and 50 levels of undo. Free speed control covers slow, fast, freeze and reverse. The Library keeps every recording and project together, and versioned project snapshots sit under autosave so you can walk a project back.
Download for Mac →On iPhone
A real multi-clip touch timeline: cut, trim, ripple-delete, drag to reorder, per-clip volume, and an Audio tool holding every level in one place. Picture-in-picture overlays resize free-form (independent width and height), zoom blocks and speed control are free, and keyframe curves, masks and speed ramps are the Pro depth toolset - the same law as the Mac.
Everything the mobile app does →Same project on both. Hand it from iPhone to the Mac as a .zella file and the clips, cuts, captions, titles, callouts and effects come with it. Mac and iPhone, side by side →
THE PROOF
The specifics behind the promise.
- Timeline with ripple delete, drag-trim, drag-to-reorder and 50-level undo - B-key cut and the full keyboard set on Mac
- Named for beginners on both apps - tabs say Text and Arrows, the toggle says "Music gets quieter when you talk", one-time tips teach the two gestures nobody finds, and every delete answers "tap Undo to bring it back"
- Advanced tools switch - one toggle reveals motion keyframes, the bezier curve editor, live luma scopes, Color Match and effect masks
- Speed control - slow / fast / freeze frame / reverse free, plus Instant Replay and Rewind on iPhone; speed ramps with Pro
- J / L cuts for natural-sounding edits
- Per-clip volume, autosave with crash recovery, versioned project snapshots
WHEN THIS MEETS A PAID CEILING
Cutting, trimming, reordering, zoom blocks, retiming and basic speed are free on both platforms. Pro is the depth toolset: keyframes with bezier curves, live luma scopes, Color Match, feathered effect masks and speed ramps. A project that already carries any of them still previews and exports on every tier.
Everything else is free forever: the complete editor, all the AI, unlimited recording, and watermark-free export up to 2 minutes at up to 1080p. 1080p is free permanently, and a free export is never stamped. Pro is $89 once and covers Mac and iPhone on a single purchase, and every new install runs the full Pro set for its first 7 days with no card and nothing to cancel. See pricing →
SEE IT DOING A REAL JOB
Who uses this, and for what.
Deliver more edits without buying more subscriptions.
One purchase, no per-seat billing, no cloud queue between you and the render. Keep the whole margin on every job.
Read the workflow → Course creatorsA whole course, recorded and cut by one person.
Record each lesson, strip the mistakes and dead air automatically, caption it for accessibility, and export the module at full quality.
Read the workflow → Social managers & agenciesRun several accounts without several subscriptions.
A saved template per client keeps every account visually consistent, and one long recording becomes a week of scheduled posts.
Read the workflow →GO DEEPER
One guide per feature.
Cutting and trimming
The blade, the ripple delete, and how often to cut.
Speed, slow motion and ramps
Changing how fast a clip plays, on both apps, and ramping between two speeds.
Transitions between clips
What to put on a cut, when to put nothing, and the sound that sells it.
Picture-in-picture and split screen
Putting a second video on top of the first, or beside it.
B-roll, found and placed
Cutaway footage that hides an edit, and where it belongs.
Autosave, versions and recovery
What survives a crash, what survives a bad hour, and the difference.
The Advanced tools toggle
Keyframes, curves, scopes, Color Match and masks, off by default on purpose.
READ THE MANUAL
Every control, documented.
Local. Private. One-time price.
macOS 14 Sonoma+ · iPhone on iOS 18+ · Local-only · No cloud