Repurpose Your YouTube Videos as Shorts (in 5 Easy Steps)

By now, you’ve probably heard about YouTube Shorts, a feature that is essentially YouTube’s answer to TikTok and Instagram Reels. And if you’re not creating them yet, it’s time to start! Shorts are a fantastic way to promote your regular channel, get more views, and grow your subscriber count. 

The best news is that you don’t even have to create brand-new content for YouTube Shorts. Instead, you can simply repurpose your YouTube videos as Shorts. And we’re going to walk you through exactly how to do that in this step-by-step guide. 

Repurpose Your YouTube Videos as Shorts (in 5 Easy Steps)

1. Pick your original YouTube video

To begin, you’ll want to pick a longer video that you’ve posted previously on your YouTube channel so that you can repurpose it for YouTube Shorts. All you’ll need to do is break that longer video up into “micro” videos. In order to create micro pieces of content like this, it’s best to choose a video that has a few obvious points. That sort of structure will make it easier to naturally break up into shorter videos.

For example, take a YouTube video with five main points. You can then divide that long YouTube video into five separate videos to cover each point. That’s five brand-new YouTube Shorts that you just created from a single YouTube video.

2. Duplicate your video for Shorts

Now here’s where Zubtitle comes in! Once you’ve picked your YouTube video, you’ll likely want to keep an original copy and then have your edited versions — multiple edited versions, in fact, since you’re splitting one long YouTube video into multiple Shorts. The best way to accomplish this is with Zubtitle’s state-of-the-art editing software! With our new Duplicate function, you can create as many copies as you want of your original video, eliminating the need to upload the same original video over and over again. 

All you have to do is sign up for a free account (or log in to your account, if you already have one) and upload your original video. The first screen that you’ll see is a place to trim your video. You can skip that for this time and move onto the next screen. There, in the upper right hand menu, you’ll see an option to duplicate. You can use that button to duplicate your original video as many times as you want. For example, if you’re taking a YouTube video that you want to turn into five micro-videos for Shorts, go ahead and duplicate that original video five times. Now you can trim and edit those duplicates and keep an original, unedited copy, all in one place.

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3. Trim your YouTube video for Shorts

Once you’ve duplicated your video (however many times you need), you can start editing your duplicate(s). Take your first one, for example, and trim it down to just the section you want for your first micro-video. Just use our simple point and drag editor to quickly trim the front and back end of your video until you’ve got the exact clip you need. When you have the exact section you want, move on to the next screen.

4. Resize and optimize your Shorts

Now that you have your trimmed video, all you have to do is resize and optimize it so it performs well on YouTube Shorts. And you can do it all in just a few clicks with Zubtitle! With Zubtitle, you can edit your automatically transcribed captions, customize your video with your logo, brand colors, and fonts, add animated captions, include eye-catching elements like a headline and a progress bar, and much more! 

5. Render your new video(s)

For each video, simply select the download button in the upper-right hand corner to render your video and download it to your computer or device. Now you’re ready to repurpose your YouTube videos as Shorts!

Are you ready to repurpose your YouTube videos as Shorts?

Just log in! If you don’t have a Zubtitle account and you’re ready to start creating for FREE, sign up today! 

And if you want to learn more about producing great social media videos, check out this video (and our Instagram):