Perfect for editing on your phone or tablet, these are the best video editing apps for Android and iOS.

The best video editing apps mean you don't have to be sat at your desk to create great videos. Wherever you are, you can edit footage on your mobile device, whether you're a pro video editor, a YouTuber, or just someone who likes shooting video on their phone for fun.
Yes, they're less powerful than the best video editing software for PCs and Macs. But these days, they're surprisingly capable, and on the flipside, they're often faster, more efficient and easier to use than desktop software.
Available for both Android and iOS, these video editing apps can be used on both smartphones and tablets (see our best tablets for video editing if you need the latter). And if you've got an iPhone 13 Pro or Pro Max, which have the ability to shoot video in high-quality ProRes format, you'll definitely want to check them out.
Below you'll find the very best video editing apps available today, including free, freemium and paid-for options. We'll explain which apps are best for particular tasks, and give you the information you need to choose between them.
Meanwhile, if you're looking to upgrade your video editing hardware too then don't miss our guides to the best computer for video editing, the best monitor for video editing and the best MacBook for video editing.
Read on to discover the top 3 video editing apps today (in brief) and then our full dive into the best video editing apps around right now.
The top 3 video editing apps
The best video editing apps in 2021
Premiere Rush is a cross-platform, video editing app that's aimed at YouTubers and social media users. For that reason, it's been made much easier to use than Adobe's desktop software, such as Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition.
Premiere Rush focuses on making it easy to process your clips quickly and upload them to social media. For example, it automatically converts your videos to the specific aspect ratios and quality levels required by each platform.
It's not just for amateurs, though. It's also the best video editing app for professional video editors, because lets you take content you've been working on in Premiere Pro, and make further tweaks to it on a phone or tablet. You can then upload that content to the cloud, continue working on it in Premiere Pro, and so on.
The app's interface is nice and simple with large icons and panels, making it very straightforward for standard video editing tasks, such as dragging-and-dropping footage onto the timeline, correcting colour, mixing in music or voiceovers, or adding titles and transitions.
There's a one-minute tutorial when you first open the app, but actually, Premiere Rush is so simple to use, you might not need it, making it one of the best video editing apps for beginners. See our Premiere Rush review for more info.
How do you get Premiere Rush? Firstly, you can subscribe to Premiere Rush as a single app, or as part of a limited free starter plan.
Other options include subscribing to Premiere Rush bundled with Premiere Pro, or as part of the entire Adobe suite: check out Adobe Creative Cloud discounts for the best current price. Plus, earlier this month Adobe announced that subscribers to the Photography Plan now get Premiere Rush for free.
Whichever option you go for, you'll get constant updates to the app without having to pay extra. For instance, the most recent release (version 1.5.58) included timeline and reset enhancements on iOS, and reset enhancements on Android.
Quik is the new name for the official GoPro app, which was rebranded in March 2021 with a fresh look, and incorporating the music-sync editing tools of the original Quik app.
This video editing app is focused on two main things: allowing you to remotely control your GoPro device, and edit your GoPro footage. It automatically imports your footage, and makes it easy to do things like sync your clips to music, add photos, titles and timelapse sequences, and include graphs based on your stats.
We especially love the Horizon Levelling editor, which tweaks the angle of your scene to correct things if your camera wasn't mounted in line with the horizon. We also appreciate being able to go through your footage frame-by-frame to find standout still images. Once your photos and videos are ready, you can directly upload them to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and more, or share them via text or email.
The latest version, 10.1, launched in September 2021 on both iOS and Android to expand high-performance video support. This means that 5.3K, 5K and 4K video can now be preview, edit, and shared within Quik.
This app is free, but with in-app purchases you can get extra themes and filters, as well as the ability to auto-upload photos and videos to the cloud.
LumaFusion is an iOS app that's commonly used by journalists, filmmakers, and video producers to capture and edit video on the fly. Produced by the creators of Pinnacle Studio, this app for iPhone and iPad gives you six video/audio tracks for photos, videos, titles and graphics, along with an extra six audio tracks for narration, music and sound effects.
The interface is pretty similar to Final Cut Pro X, with its magnetic timeline. One of LumaFusion’s most impressive features is that any effect can be keyframed, as can clip animation, allowing precise adjustments to your project.
Other advanced tools on offer include insert/overwrite capability, colour correction, a fully featured audio mixer, lossless export, support for vertical video, advanced title creation tools and slow motion/fast motion (forward and reverse).
The latest version, v3.0, launched this June and pushed things further in terms of sophistication. The big highlight here is the MultiCam Sync feature, which allows you to sync and edit clips from multiple camera and audio sources. Plus, if you have the latest iPad Pro, you can take full advantage of your Thunderbolt 4 port for faster download and upload speeds.
Once you're done, there are endless sharing options and exporting options. For instance, you can export at different resolutions, qualities and frame-rates, as well as exporting audio and video separately. The app even supports for XML export to Final Cut Pro X.
At a low one-off fee, this all represents something of a bargain, and makes it one of the best video editing apps for pros. For more details, read our full LumaFusion review.
KineMaster is one of the best video editing apps for professional use. With high-end features such as blending modes, chroma keying, and audio mixing, this advanced app allows you to shoot, edit and export your footage on your phone or tablet via a mult-layer interface. It's available for both iOS and Android.
This is one of the best video editing apps for trimming clips and layers with frame-by-frame granularity. Audio clip timing can be adjusted, too, with sub-frame accuracy. You can upload multiple layers of video (on supported devices), images and text, as well as multi-track audio.
Beyond that, Kinemaster is packed with advanced features, including instant edit previews, precise volume envelope control, colour LUT filters, speed controls, chroma key compositing and 3D transitions. In short, while this is not quite Premiere Pro on a mobile device, it's not far off.
The app is free to download, but note that it adds watermarks to videos, which you have to take out a subscription to remove. A subscription also allows you to export at 1080p or 4K, and get access to over a thousand premium assets. Find out more in our KineMaster review.
If you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac, you'll have iMovie, as it's automatically included with your hardware. This consumer app is a long, long way from being a pro tool like LumaFusion or Kinemaster. But if you're a beginner who wants to get started editing video, and add titles, music, voiceovers and photos to it, it's got everything you need.
iMovie supports 4K on modern devices, and as you'd expect, integrates beautifully with the Apple ecosystem as a whole. So for example, you can save your clips to the iCloud drive or stream them to an Apple TV via AirPlay, and everything plays nicely with Apple Photos, Mail and Messages too. Read our iMovie review to learn more.
iMovie got a big update in September 2021, most notably adding the ability to import and edit video captured in Cinematic mode on iPhone 13. If you have a recent iPhone or iPad, you can also now add, adjust, and delete focus points, and modify the depth of field effect in video recorded in Cinematic mode.
FilmoraGo is a free app for iOS and Android made by Wondershare that lets you edit online HD videos without a steep learning curve. And thanks to its themed filters and effects, it can help even newbies make their videos look impressively professional.
Some in-app purchases are available, such as songs and effects, but your videos can work perfectly well without them. And yes, there are internal ads, but they aren’t especially intrusive. So while it's quite a basic app – for example, there's no multi-track editing or 4K support – it's still one of the best video editing apps around that doesn't cost anything.
Note, though, that's it's only available on iOS for iPhone, not iPad; and that you'll have watermarks on your videos unless you upgrade to the paid version.
Tried FilmoraGo and didn't like it? It might be worth having another look, as in June 2021, makers Wondershare launched a new version (6.0) which features a brand new user interface, as well as an AR camera and light and dark modes. Plus you can now choose to splice videos in the same picture, there's an extensive range of templates in categories such fashion, food and travel, and you can use masks not only on the main track but also on the PIP track.
If you like FilmoraGo and fancy checking out its desktop sibling, see our Filmora X review.
The best video editing apps are sometimes overkill, if all you want is to edit your family videos for fun. So if you're an iOS user, it's worth checking out Apple Clips. This free app allows you to create and send video messages, or tell video stories with filters, animated text, music, emoji, and stickers.
Primarily aimed at children and families, Apple Clips is pretty lightweight stuff: it's not even as powerful as iMovie. That said, with each successive update, it is getting a little closer to becoming a serious video editing app.
In the last big update in October (3.0), for example, it got a refreshed interface, support for vertical and horizontal video, and HDR recording. In version 3.1 (April 2021), Apple added AR Spaces, an augmented reality feature available to iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro users.
Finally, in the latest update this September (3.1.2) it got the ability to import and edit video captured in Cinematic mode on iPhone 13. You can also now apply effects like filters, stickers, and emoji to video recorded in Cinematic mode; and add videos or photos from your Photos library with a single tap, without having to record each one into your project.
For more information, read our Apple Clips review.
Filmmaker Pro is another one of the best video editing apps for your iPhone. This app is primarily aimed at consumers but as the name suggests, comes with some nice pro features too, including 30 filters, 17 transitions and Audiometer assisted voiceovers.
You also get video grading, a superb green screen support, nearly 200 different fonts for your text overlays, and some advanced tools such as chroma keying. A big update in July 2021 update added a key frame animation tool, which lets you add multiple custom transforms to an animation stack that's applied to a layer.
Note that, like many apps on this list, Filmmaker Pro is free to download, but you won't get the full feature set and you'll have watermarks on your videos too. So it's best to consider this as a paid-for, subscription-based app, and treat the free download as basically a free trial version.
If you want a video editing app for your social media needs, then Inshot is a good choice. It's specifically geared toward creating clips for social media, and is one of the best video editing apps for that purpose. For example, it comes with pre-built canvas sizes for everything from IGTV to TikTok.
With a clear and easy to use interface, Inshot makes it smooth and easy to import, trim and edit your clips together, then add filters, stickers, captions, emojis, and other fun things on top, as well as free music and sound effects.
The app is free, but comes with ads, and your videos will be watermarked. Both can be removed with a small monthly subscription. There are also one-off purchases for more advanced features.
Available for Android, ActionDirector's focus, as the name suggests, is squarely on capturing and editing action video footage. So as well as being a basic video editing app, it also offers some nifty action effects to apply to your shots.
For instance, you can slow down or speed up video segments with precision, to create eye-catching slow-motion or fast-motion scenes. You can also highlight specific sections of your video to replay or rewind.
Beyond that the app also makes it easy to add titles and text, mix in music, and share video via social networks. ActionDirector is free, with in-app purchases for certain features.
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