Free · open source · MIT

Magpie

Video editing for people who don’t want to learn video editing.

For the ad hoc filmmaker who recorded their screen, recorded a voiceover, and doesn’t want to spend a weekend learning a real editor. Honestly? Can’t blame you. Joshua didn’t want to either.

Get it on GitHub See a film made with it

Magpie's editor: the chapters of a film across the top, a screen recording in the preview, and the video and audio timelines underneath with the real-time moments marked.

How it works

Upload your voiceYour narration, one file or several played back to back.
Upload your recordingsScreen recordings or any .mov / .mp4. Your originals are never changed.
Mark the momentsPick the stretches people should see at real speed.
Magpie fits the restEverything in between is sped up so the video lasts exactly as long as the audio.
ExportOne .mp4 (H.264 + AAC), saved to your Downloads.

Also in the box:

Chapters: build a film in parts, export it as one
Split and trim clips
Switch a clip off without deleting it
Captions from a transcript (optional, needs a local whisper.cpp server)
Autosave

Don’t just use it. Grow it.

Magpie is the screen where you make the decisions: which moment, where it lands, how long it plays. Everything else is meant to be added with Claude Code the moment you need it. Every feature in it was built that way, mid-project: splitting, chapters, captions, switching a clip off. It’s plain Node and one HTML page, with no framework and no build step, so it’s easy for Claude Code to extend.

Run it

You need Node.js 18+ and ffmpeg. There are no packages to install. It runs on your own computer, in your browser.

git clone https://github.com/joshua-mullet-town/magpie.git
cd magpie
npm start

Then open http://localhost:4021. Built and tested on macOS.

Why it exists

Joshua Mullet had a picture in his head of the demo film for Homestead: his voice telling the story, with the screen keeping pace. Instead of learning a big video editor, he built Magpie to do exactly that one job. He can’t promise it suits anyone else’s film, but it’s free if it does.