Today Shotcut has decided that every new video clip dropped to the timeline will add another video and audio track. The clip still goes onto the track that I drop it onto, but it creates multiple empty tracks as well. This is fairly annoying as it quickly makes a mess of the timeline and I have to manually delete all the extras. I’m currently on 25.11.2 (Linux). I haven’t noticed this before so I’m not sure if this is a bug from a recent update or what.
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Settings > Timeline > Automatically Add Tracks
It only adds another empty track when an empty track gets another clip. It keeps an empty track—audio and video each—ready to receive more without having to manually add tracks.
An empty track also facilitates either rectangle selection or scrubbing.
For a beginner, new, or infrequent user it makes some common needs more obvious. For example, “How do I add music?” Without it, need to learn that you must add an audio track and how to do that. With this, they might see the audio track and it becomes more obvious. Likewise, overlay an image or video on top of a video. A lot of video editors start with a few empty tracks and/or automatically add tracks as you drag a clip upwards or downwards.
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Hi Dan, I respectfully disagree, and @Saveitforparts has described the situation very well, because “it quickly makes a mess of the timeline and I have to manually delete all the extras”.
I also don’t think that this default setting is useful for beginners. Please keep in mind that beginners have to first grasp the concept of non-linear editing, learn about the various basic options for cutting, trimming, deleting, colour corrections etc. Working with multiple tracks, overlays etc. are advanced features and related skills.
Moreover, adding clips to the playlist and adding or deleting tracks are basic functions that need to be learned at the beginning. Automatically creating an additional track for every added clip to the same timeline is simply confusing for newbies (and unnnecessary), as well as a chore for users that don’t need another track.
I agree that there are use cases for that feature, but it shouldn’t be the hugely irritating default setting.
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Consider it an experiment. But there is no data collection in Shotcut, and positive feedback is only about 1% of total feedback. Yours is not so relevant because you got the concept of a beginner wrong IMO, and this is not only about beginners. If this was not able to be turned off you would learn that once you stop obsessively deleting the empty tracks and learn to live with it, it’s no longer really much of a problem and actually rather nice. It is my decision, and people can learn to turn it off if they want.
Here’s my feedback: I also am annoyed at the extra tracks being created when I didn’t specifically desire them to be. If this isn’t reversed, then in the future I would like an option to turn off this feature.
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It already exists
Settings > Timeline > Automatically Add Tracks
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Perfect - thanks.
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Hi,
I am beginner, and I actually only use Shotcut for TV records (I drag the multiple record video files to the playlist, then to the timeline one after the other, then cut this timeline to remove ads and only keep the movie, then export it in a single file). So first, thanks for having make this Shotcut software free
But that “Automatically add tracks” change should have been warned in a release log or so (using apt update/apt dist-upgrade, I saw none). That way, it wouldn’t have messed up with my way of using Shotcut. So I would advise: be careful if you add/activate some changing-behavior things because if it maybe help some new comers, it will for sure mess with current user’s workflow.
Good still to have made this behavior de-activable. And thanks for putting no “ad/tracker-crap” in that software either (I do the same and so I’m likely blind too on my few own projects, hence why I value direct feedbacks, though forums/DM).
So, thanks, but if you can, please notify such change in an apt-release message next time.
I should not have to explain there is a web site and the GitHub Releases page that has this. Clicking the in-app update notification takes you directly to it.
please notify such change in an apt-release message
I do not make distro packages, and I am not going to do something special just for that and the proliferation of software packages and distributions. A web site is universal and what most people consult.
Immediately after I upgraded from 23.09.29 to 25.11.2 I noticed the behavior discussed, and I too found it annoying. I also found that this feature applies to audio files as well: dragging an audio file onto the timeline automatically adds an audio track.
So I used the option Dan mentions to turn the feature off, and to my surprise and delight, Shotcut STILL automatically adds an AUDIO track when recording voiceover to prevent overwriting audio tracks. (However, if you open an audio file and drag it onto the timeline, no track is added automatically.)
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That is unrelated to this setting and will remain so. This depends on the current playhead time as explained in the release notes when this feature was added:
It uses the current track if it is audio and empty at the playhead and beyond. Otherwise, it adds an audio track.
Same goes for the things in the File New or New Generator menus except it is based on video track unless it is the Audio Tone generator.
Now, this is the end of discussion, and I am closing this thread. If you start a new thread without anything very meaningful to suggest I will delete it.