How to Speed Up a Video for YouTube

To speed up a video for YouTube, use the Speed control in the Shorts camera. Noting that it's described as speeding up or slowing down recording, so it's a capture setting rather than something you apply to finished footage.

Speed up a video for YouTube while you record

Speed sits alongside Timer, Filters, Effects, Green Screen, Align and Trim in the Shorts creation tools. Set it before a take and the clip is captured at that rate.

For a clip that's already shot, the speed change belongs in an editor before upload. Studio's Editor won't help: it does Trim & cut, Blur, Audio and end screens, and playback speed isn't in that list.

The length problem people are usually trying to solve

Most searches for a speed control are really about runtime. Shorts can be up to three minutes long, but Google's own Shorts asset guidance notes that only the first 60 seconds play in the Shorts feed, and recommends keeping videos under 60 seconds to match how people actually watch.

So the target is real. The question is what you spend to hit it. Speeding up works on process. Hands moving, a room being tidied, a build happening. It works badly on speech, because it compresses the delivery along with the pauses, and a fast explanation is a worse explanation.

Getting the runtime down without touching the speed

Montaj has no speed control. It won't play your footage faster, and there's no slider to look for.

What it does instead is remove the dead air: one tap detects the silences across the whole clip and takes them out. The time comes off the gaps rather than off the words, so the delivery stays exactly as you performed it. It's a different answer to the same problem you were trying to solve by speeding up a video for YouTube.