Drop your video in
Drag a raw talking-head take into the studio — or share it straight from Final Cut Pro. Transcription runs locally on your Mac, and Smart Silence tunes itself to your room.
5 cuts free.
Then one purchase, ever.
How it works
From raw footage to a reviewed rough cut in minutes
One pass, three steps. No timeline scrubbing, no manual silence hunting, no re-rendering your media.
Review every cut
An AI editing pass marks what a human editor would remove — flubbed takes, restarts, tangents, dead air — and keeps your last clean take. Flip any decision and recompute in seconds.
Export to Final Cut Pro
One click exports a frame-accurate FCPXML timeline linked to your original
media in place. Open it in Final Cut Pro — or DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro — and finish your edit.
Features
Built for Final Cut Pro. Kind to your footage.
Private by design
Speech-to-text runs entirely on your Mac. No accounts, no analytics, no developer servers — your video and audio never leave the machine. Read the privacy policy.
Cuts like an editor
One global AI pass reads the whole transcript the way an editor watches a take — so retakes, false starts and tangents go, and your last clean delivery stays.
Frame-accurate FCPXML
Cuts are quantized to your footage's real frame boundaries. The exported timeline references your original files in place — nothing is copied, converted or re-rendered.
You stay the editor
Every cut is a proposal on one timeline: listen to any segment, flip any Keep/Remove decision, and recompute the whole cut instantly.
English & Arabic
Both languages with automatic detection — including dialect-aware handling built from hundreds of real bilingual takes.
Your key, your costs
The AI pass uses your own Google Gemini key, stored in the macOS Keychain and billed by Google directly — typically 5–25¢ per 10-minute video. No key? Silence-only cutting still works.
Screenshots
See it in action
Pricing
Try RoughCut on your own footage — your first five rough cuts are free. After that it's a single one-time unlock on the Mac App Store. No subscription, no per-video charges, no accounts.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can RoughCut remove silence from my videos automatically?
Yes. RoughCut detects and removes silences automatically, and Smart Silence tunes the threshold to your actual recording — quiet room, standard, noisy, or a custom dB floor. With an AI key added it goes further and removes false starts, retakes and tangents, keeping your last clean take.
Does RoughCut work with Final Cut Pro?
It's built for Final Cut Pro. The export is a frame-accurate FCPXML timeline that links to your original media in place — nothing is re-rendered, and your footage never moves. The same FCPXML also imports into DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro.
Is my footage uploaded anywhere?
No. Video and audio never leave your Mac — transcription runs locally on Apple Silicon. Only transcript text is sent to the AI provider you configure, under your own account. There are no user accounts, no analytics and no developer servers. Details in the privacy policy.
What does the AI pass cost?
Google bills your own Gemini key directly — a 10-minute video typically costs 5–25¢, and light use often fits Google's free tier. RoughCut itself never charges per use: it's a one-time purchase after 5 free cuts. Without a key, silence-only cutting works fully offline.
Which languages are supported?
English and Arabic, with automatic language detection.
What are the system requirements?
Apple Silicon (M1 or later), macOS 26 or newer, and about 2 GB of free disk space for the one-time local speech model download (~1.6 GB, removed with the app).
Where do I get help?
The support page covers getting started, keys and troubleshooting — and RoughCut's built-in Help & FAQ section walks through every feature in depth.