Reference Manual

• Navigating Descript

  Welcome to Descript Descript is a powerful creative platform that br...

• The editor interface

  The Project editor is where you bring your ideas to life in Descript...

• Drive view

  The Drive view is your main hub for organizing projects in Descript...

• Create your Descript Account

  You can set up your Descript account in a couple of different ways. ...

• Downloading and installing Descript

  Descript is currently available as a desktop application for both ma...

• Descript system requirements

  If Descript isn’t performing as expected — your recordings are glitc...

• Descript for Web

  Descript for Web lets you access Descript directly from your web bro...

• Updating Descript to the latest version

  Descript automatically checks for updates while running to ensure yo...

• Why does Descript open when I start my computer?

  Launch at Login From Descript's Screen Recorder settings, you have t...

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• Access your account or reset your password

  If you’re having trouble signing in to Descript or need to reset you...

• Update your account email address

  If you created a Descript account with a username and password authe...

• Customize your profile image and name

  If you would like to change the name on your profile or add a custom...

• Switch between multiple Descript accounts

  To switch between Descript accounts (with different email addresses)...

• Account data and privacy

  Enterprise drives do not have the option to toggle data sharing, whi...

• How to delete your Descript account

  If you're sure you're ready to leave Descript, you can permanently d...

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• Upload a file from your computer

  Upload audio, video, or image files saved on your computer directly ...

• Import and upload files into Descript

  Import media into Descript from your computer, a connected Zoom acco...

• Set up and manage your Drive

  A Drive is where your projects, members, and settings live. You can ...

• Drive Membership Roles: How to Invite and Manage Team Members

  Invite others to your Drive to collaborate with your team in one sha...

• Project access and collaborator roles in Descript

  Drive Owners, Admins, and Editors can invite collaborators to a spec...

• Drive admins

  Plan restriction This feature is available for Enterprise plans onl...

• Changing the default save location for new projects

  Plan restriction This feature is only available on Enterprise plans...

• Accept a Drive membership invitation

  Before someone can access your Drive and start collaborating, they’l...

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• How billing works in Descript

  Here are a few key points to help you understand how subscription bi...

• Invoice history

  You can view and download your monthly or annual subscription invoic...

• View and manage your Drive subscription

  Manage your Descript subscription You can manage your billing, plan,...

• Upgrade your subscription

  Upgrading to a Hobbyist, Creator, or Business plan gives you access ...

• Pausing your Descript subscription

  If you want to take a break from Descript, you can pause your subscr...

• Downgrade or cancel a subscription

  When you downgrade or cancel a subscription, you’ll lose access to t...

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• Upload a slide deck (PDF) into Descript

  Import a PDF of your presentation into Descript to turn your slide d...

• Manage the editor layout with the View menu

  The View menu (available with the new timeline toggled on in Labs) l...

• AI Video Maker

  Descript’s AI Video Maker turns ideas into ready-to-edit videos—comp...

• Set and Customize Thumbnails

  A thumbnail is the preview image shown for your project in Descript....

• Layer Panel

  The Layer panel covers all your properties for individual content la...

• Projects overview

  Projects are containers for everything you create in Descript. They ...

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• Composition overview

  A composition is what you'll eventually export from Descript. Every ...

• Customize the editor

  Optimize your editing workflow by customizing the layout of the edit...

• Audio-only compositions

  Descript allows you to create audio-only compositions. These composi...

• Viewing duration and word count

  When you make a selection in your script, we'll display the duration...

• Playback and navigation

  Descript's playback and navigation features allow you to see where y...

• Auto-scrolling

  When you playback a composition, Descript will auto-scroll the visib...

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• Regenerate Overview

  Descript's regenerate tool adapts to your edits—smooth audio transit...

• Regenerate video (beta) to match your updated audio

  Regenerate video (beta) is an optional step you can take when updati...

• Use Regenerate to edit or change recorded audio

  Regenerate is a flexible tool that can do a lot—from smoothing rough...

• Use Regenerate to fix or smooth out any jumpy, abrupt, or awkward audio

  Use Regenerate to smooth out rough edits, awkward pacing, or distrac...

• AI Speakers overview

  Create and edit content with your own voice clone or one of Descrip...

• Generating text-to-speech

  This article will show you how to use an AI Speaker to generate text...

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• Avatars Overview

  Avatars let you create polished videos without ever stepping in fro...

• How to use avatars in Descript

  Avatars let you add an on-screen presenter to your videos without re...

• Custom Avatars

  Descript lets you create AI avatars that animate in sync with your s...

• Underlord (beta): Your AI co-editor in Descript

  Underlord is your AI co-editor built right into Descript—a powerful ...

• AI Tools Overview

  AI tools can help streamline common editing tasks like cleaning up a...

• Translate your captions into another language

  Use Descript’s Translate feature to generate translated captions, su...

• Undo or rollback changes made by Underlord (beta)

  Underlord is still in beta, and we want you to feel confident trying...

• Understanding AI Tools, Features, and Usage Tracking

  Descript offers a variety of AI-powered tools. Some tools are groupe...

• Translate and dub speech overview

  Descript’s Translate feature turns your script into subtitles, trans...

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• Scenes overview

  Scenes control how and when visual content — like video, images, tex...

• Scene properties

  Each scene in Descript has its own properties, which you can view an...

• Scene boundaries

  Scene boundaries define where one scene ends and another begins in y...

• Edit a scene transition

  A transition controls how one scene or clip visually moves into the ...

• Splitting vs. creating a new scene

  Splitting a scene To split a scene, insert a forward slash (/) in yo...

• Reorder scenes

  Move or change the order of scenes in your Descript composition by d...

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• Wordless media in your script (beta)

  Wordless media is disabled by default. Wordless media refers to sect...

• Write mode

  Write mode lets you draft your script directly in Descript—before yo...

• Edit like a doc

  Descript lets you edit audio and video as easily as editing a text d...

• Selection toolbar

  The selection toolbar shows up when you highlight a portion of your ...

• Deleting vs ignoring script text

  Deleting and ignoring text or wordless media in your script is how y...

• Edit boundaries

  Edit boundaries are represented by ¦ vertical lines that appear in y...

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• Scene editor overview

  The scene editor contains all of a scene’s visual elements — the vid...

• Adding media or layout packs to the active scene

  When you add media or apply a layout to the scene editor, it will on...

• Scene editor tools

  You’ve got a handful of tools for working with visuals in the scene ...

• Aspect ratio and video settings

  You can adjust your composition's aspect ratio, increase or decrease...

• Resizing and positioning the scene editor

  Make the most out of your video editing experience by bending the sc...

• Stock Panel

  The Stock panel offers a creative set of visual and audible content ...

• Import YouTube, GIPHY, or Zoom recordings via a URL

  You can import videos into Descript from YouTube, GIPHY, or Zoom Clo...

• Project Panel

  The Project panel is where you’ll find all the media in your composi...

• Project files

  All of your media is accessible from the Files section of the Projec...

• Stock media

  Descript includes a built-in stock media library with high-quality v...

• Project file actions

  You can interact with files from the Project panel by selecting the ...

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• The Split button: how to split scenes and layers directly in the timeline

  Use the Split button to divide your timeline into cleaner, editable ...

• Timeline overview

  The timeline gives you fine-tuned control over how your composition ...

• Advanced timeline tools

  The Advanced Timeline Tools let you fine-tune how you trim, split, a...

• Trimming clips

  Whether you want to remove extra silence in your recording, adjust t...

• The wordbar

  The wordbar tells you exactly what words a waveform represents, and ...

• Wordless Media Labels

  Descript's label feature allows you to tag ranges of wordless media...

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• Automatic transcription

  Descript offers a cutting-edge automatic (AI-powered) transcription ...

• Supported transcription languages

  Descript can automatically transcribe audio and video in 25 differen...

• Automatic Speaker Detection

  Descript will automatically run speaker detection on transcribed fil...

• Transcription glossary

  Please note that this feature is currently only available in Englis...

• Transcription accuracy

  Descript's automatic transcription is up to 95% accurate. The accura...

• See your transcription activity

  You can see your transcription history and all the transcriptions yo...

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• Add and style captions

  Descript automatically generates captions from your script, so you d...

• Replacing media layers like b-roll, images, music, and other layers

  You can replace media in Descript without losing edits, captions, or...

• Placeholder Layers

  Placeholder layers let you visually mark where media should go in yo...

• Layer and clip overview

  Layers contain all the non-script visual and audio elements in a Des...

• Add layers to your composition

  Layers are the visual and audio elements you add to your Descript co...

• Layer visibility and order

  Layers give you control over how visuals are arranged, stacked, and ...

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• Sequence overview

  With a Sequence, you can automatically sync multiple camera angles a...

• Create a sequence

  If you're working with multiple audio or video tracks from the same ...

• Switching between video layouts of a sequence

  When you are working with a multitrack sequence that contain video t...

• Sequence Editor

  The Sequence Editor provides a multitrack editing view for files con...

• Fix duplicate transcripts or mic bleed

  If you're hearing echo or delayed audio, or if your transcript looks...

• Detach audio

  Descript's Detach audio feature lets you edit a video’s audio track ...

• Recorder overview: the Editor Recorder and Screen Recorder

  With Descript, you have two recording options: the Editor Recorder ...

• Record with Descript's built-in teleprompter

  Descript includes a built-in teleprompter you can use while recordin...

• Record a slideshow presentation with Descript

  Turn your live presentation into a polished, reusable video. With De...

• How to use the Screen Recorder in the Descript desktop app

  The Screen Recorder is a lightweight recording tool available in Des...

• Effects overview

  Descript includes a wide variety of audio and video effects that hel...

• Applying and adjusting effects

  You can apply one or more effects to the script, scenes, sequences, ...

• Smart Transitions

  The Smart transitions feature introduces a powerful way to enhance t...

• Add a zoom effect with a custom animation

  Select the layer you want to animate. Access the Layer panel, then ...

• Ken Burns Animation

  The Ken Burns animation, named after the famous American documentary...

• Apply and adjust animations

  You can animate any visual in your scene—no matter what plan you’re ...

• Transitions overview

  Transitions are visual effects you can apply to smooth the start, en...

• Applying a transition to a clip

  You can apply a transition to any clip in the script track from the ...

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• View and monitor audio levels of your composition

  The volume unit (VU) meter in the Timeline shows the stereo audio le...

• Adjust audio volume and panning

  In Descript, you can adjust volume and panning to control how audio ...

• Auto-leveling

  Auto-leveling helps keep your audio consistent throughout the compos...

• Room tone

  Recordings made outside of professional-grade recording studios may ...

• Volume automation and keyframes

  You can adjust the volume over time of your script or audio layers w...

• Composition audio properties

  Similar to a master bus or mix bus, your composition's audio propert...

• Layout packs and layout overview

  A layout pack is a collection of pre-designed scenes you can use to ...

• Layout packs, scenes, and the script

  To get the most out of layout packs, it’s often helpful to understan...

• Sharing custom layout pack layouts with drive members

  When you create and publish a custom layout pack, it will be private...

• Aspect ratio consideration for custom layout packs

  If you want your layout pack to contain scenes with different aspect...

• Save a scene to a layout pack

  Layout packs can be created from scratch or saved from scenes in an ...

• Export to Google Drive

  You can export your finished video or audio project to your Google D...

• Export and publishing overview

  Descript gives you comprehensive exporting and publishing options ta...

• Export and publish content with Descript web links and share pages

  Publishing a web link is the easiest way to share your content creat...

• View, share, and manage a published share page

  After publishing your content as a web link, you may download your c...

• Publishing to other hosting providers

  Publishing to other hosting providers Descript now supports a variet...

• Locally exporting video

  You can locally export your content as mp4 video files by clicking E...

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• Project links

  By default, this private link will only work for you and the specifi...

• Commenting in projects

  Descript's commenting features make it easy to annotate your transcr...

• Set Up and Optimize Zoom for Integration with Descript

  Prefer a Simpler Way to Record and Collaborate? Record conversation...

• Export to YouTube

  Export videos directly to your YouTube channel using Descript’s buil...

• Export Blubrry episodes

  Publish to Blubrry in Descript Click Export at the top-right corner...

• Export your content to Buzzsprout

  Click Export at the top-right corner of your editor. Then select Bu...

• Exporting Captivate episodes

  Captivate only accepts audio content. If you want to export a video...

• Export your content to Castos

  Click Export at the top-right corner of your editor. Then, select C...

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• The Descript Community on Discord

  Descript has set up a Discord server — a community-based chat servic...

• The Descript Affiliate Program

  Do you enjoy Descript's powerful editing tools, and want to let your...

• Becoming a supported content hosting partner

  Descript now supports one-click export to supported content hosting ...

• Watch Descript webinars and other live events

  We regularly host live webinars, office hours, and product announcem...

• Contact Descript

  Customer Support Need help or have questions about Descript? Explore...

• What does the “Beta” label mean in Descript?

  Some features in Descript have a Beta label. This indicates the feat...

• The new timeline experience

  The new timeline in Labs is designed to make video editing simpler a...

• Preview upcoming features with Descript Labs

  Descript Labs lets you try early access features before they’re offi...

• Keyboard shortcuts

  Descript includes a wide set of keyboard shortcuts to help you edit ...

• App settings

  You can access your app settings from the top right corner of the Dr...