After a well deserved summer break, the Kdenlive community is happy to announce the first major release after the code refactoring. This version comes with a big amount of fixes and nifty new features which will lay the groundwork for the 3 point editing system planned for this cycle. The Project Bin received improvements to the icon view mode and new features were added like the ability to seek while hovering over clips with the mouse cursor and now it is possible to add a whole folder hierarchy. On the usability front the a menu option was added to reset the Kdenlive config file and now you can search for effects from all tabs instead of only the selected tab. Head to our download page for AppImage and Windows packages.
Highlights
3 point editing with keyboard shortcuts
With 19.08.0 we added groundwork for full editing with keyboard shortcuts. This will speed up the
3 important points to understand the new concept:
Source (left image):
On the left of the track head the green vertical lines (V1 or A2). The green line is connected to the source clip in the project bin. Only when a clip is selected in the project bin the green line
Target (right image):
In the track
The concept is like thinking of connectors:
Connect the source (the clip in the project bin) to a target (a track in the timeline). Only when both connectors on the same track are switched on the clip “flow” from the project bin to the timeline. Be aware: Active target tracks without connected source react on edit operations.
You can find a more detailed introduction in our Toolbox section here.


Adjust AV clips independently with Shift + resize to resize only audio or video part of a clip. Meta/Windows-key + Move in timeline allows to move the audio or video part to another track independently.
Press shift while hovering over clips in the Project Bin to seek through them.
Adjust the speed of a clip by pressing CTRL + dragging a clip in the timeline.
Now you can choose the number of channels and sample rates in the audio capture settings.
Other features
- Added a parameter for steps that allows users to control the separation between keyframes generated by the motion tracker.
- Re-enable transcode clip functionality.
- Added a screen selection in the screen grab widget.
- Add option to sort audio tracks in reverse order.
- Default fade duration is now configurable from Kdenlive Settings > Misc.
- Render dialog: add context menu to rendered jobs allowing to add rendered file as a project clip.
- Renderwidget: Use max number of threads in render.
- More UI components are translatable.
Full list of commits
- Do not setToolTip() for the same tooltip twice. Commit.
- Use translations for asset names in the Undo History. Commit.
- Fix dropping clip in insert/overwrite mode. Commit.
- Fix timeline drag in overwrite/edit mode. Commit.
- Fix freeze deleting a group with clips on locked tracks. Commit.
- Use the translated effect names for effect stack on the timeline. Commit.
- Fix crash dragging clip in insert mode. Commit.
- Use the translated transition names in the ‘Properties’ header. Commit.
- Fix freeze and fade ins allowed to go past last frame. Commit.
- Fix revert clip speed failing. Commit.
- Fix revert speed clip reloading incorrectly. Commit.
- Fix copy/paste of clip with negative speed. Commit.
- Fix issues on clip reload: slideshow clips broken and title duration reset. Commit.
- Fix slideshow effects disappearing. Commit.
- Fix track effect keyframes. Commit.
- Fix track effects don’t invalidate timeline preview. Commit.
- Fix effect presets broken on comma locales, clear preset after resetting effect. Commit.
- Fix crash in extract zone when no track is active. Commit.
- Fix reverting clip speed modifies in/out. Commit.
- Fix audio overlay showing up randomly. Commit.
- Fix Find clip in bin not always scrolling to correct position. Commit.
- Fix possible crash changing profile when cache job was running. Commit.
- Fix editing bin clip does not invalidate timeline preview. Commit.
- Fix audiobalance (MLT doesn’t handle start param as stated). Commit.
- Fix target track inconsistencies:. Commit.
- Make the strings in the settings dialog translatable. Commit.
- Make effect names translatable in menus and in settings panel. Commit.
- Remember last target track and restore when another clip is selected. Commit.
- Dont’ process insert when no track active, don’t move cursor if no clip inserted. Commit.
- Correctly place timeline toolbar after editing toolbars. Commit.
- Lift/gamma/gain: make it possible to have finer adjustments with Shift modifier. Commit.
- Fix MLT effects with float param and no xml description. Commit.
- Cleanup timeline selection: rubber select works again when starting over a clip. Commit.
- Attempt to fix Windows build. Commit.
- Various fixes for icon view: Fix long name breaking layout, fix seeking and subclip zone marker. Commit.
- Fix some bugs in handling of NVidia HWaccel for proxies and timeline preview. Commit.
- Add 19.08 screenshot to appdata. Commit.
- Fix bug preventing sequential names when making serveral script renderings from same project. Commit.
- Fix compilation with cmake < 3.5. Commit.
- Fix extract frame retrieving wrong frame when clip fps != project fps. Commit. Fixes bug #409927
- Don’t attempt rendering an empty project. Commit.
- Fix incorrect source frame size for transform effects. Commit.
- Improve subclips visual info (display zone over thumbnail), minor cleanup. Commit.
- Small cleanup of bin preview thumbnails job, automatically fetch 10 thumbs at insert to allow quick preview. Commit.
- Fix project clips have incorrect length after changing project fps. Commit.
- Fix inconsistent behavior of advanced timeline operations. Commit.
- Fix “Find in timeline” option in bin context menu. Commit.
- Support the new logging category directory with KF 5.59+. Commit.
- Update active track description. Commit.
- Use extracted translations to translate asset descriptions. Commit.
- Fix minor typo. Commit.
- Make the file filters to be translatable. Commit.
- Extract messages from transformation XMLs as well. Commit.
- Don’t attempt to create hover preview for non AV clips. Commit.
- Add Cache job for bin clip preview. Commit.
- Preliminary implementation of Bin clip hover seeking (using shift+hover). Commit.
- Translate assets names. Commit.
- Some improvments to timeline tooltips. Commit.
- Reintroduce extract clip zone to cut a clip whithout re-encoding. Commit. See bug #408402
- Fix typo. Commit.
- Add basic collision check to speed resize. Commit.
- Bump MLT dependency to 6.16 for 19.08. Commit.
- Exit grab mode with Escape key. Commit.
- Improve main item when grabbing. Commit.
- Minor improvement to clip grabbing. Commit.
- Fix incorrect development version. Commit.
- Make all clips in selection show grab status. Commit.
- Fix “QFSFileEngine::open: No file name specified” warning. Commit.
- Don’t initialize a separate Factory on first start. Commit.
- Set name for track menu button in timeline toolbar. Commit.
- Pressing Shift while moving an AV clip allows to move video part track independently of audio part. Commit.
- Ensure audio encoding do not export video. Commit.
- Add option to sort audio tracks in reverse order. Commit.
- Warn and try fixing clips that are in timeline but not in bin. Commit.
- Try to recover a clip if it’s parent id cannot be found in the project bin (use url). Commit. See bug #403867
- Fix tests. Commit.
- Default fade duration is now configurable from Kdenlive Settings > Misc. Commit.
- Minor update for AppImage dependencies. Commit.
- Change speed clip job: fix overwrite and UI. Commit.
- Readd proper renaming for change speed clip jobs. Commit.
- Add whole hierarchy when adding folder. Commit.
- Fix subclip cannot be renamed. Store them in json and bump document version. Commit.
- Added audio capture channel & sample rate configuration. Commit.
- Add screen selection in screen grab widget. Commit.
- Initial implementation of clip speed change on Ctrl + resize. Commit.
- Fix FreeBSD compilation. Commit.
- Render dialog: add context menu to rendered jobs allowing to add rendered file as a project clip. Commit.
- Ensure automatic compositions are compositing with correct track on project opening. Commit.
- Fix minor typo. Commit.
- Add menu option to reset the Kdenlive config file. Commit.
- Motion tracker: add steps parameter. Patch by Balazs Durakovacs. Commit.
- Try to make binary-factory mingw happy. Commit.
- Remove dead code. Commit.
- Add some missing bits in Appimage build (breeze) and fix some plugins paths. Commit.
- AppImage: disable OpenCV freetype module. Commit.
- Docs: Unbreak menus. Commit.
- Sync Quick Start manual with UserBase. Commit.
- Fix transcoding crashes caused by old code. Commit.
- Reenable trancode clip functionality. Commit.
- Fix broken fadeout. Commit.
- Small collection of minor improvements. Commit.
- Search effects from all tabs instead of only the selected tab. Commit.
- Check whether first project clip matches selected profile by default. Commit.
- Improve marker tests, add abort testing feature. Commit.
- Revert “Trying to submit changes through HTTPS”. Commit.
- AppImafe: define EXT_BUILD_DIR for Opencv contrib. Commit.
- Fix OpenCV build. Commit.
- AppImage update: do not build MLT inside dependencies so we can have more frequent updates. Commit.
- If a timeline operation touches a group and a clip in this group is on a track that should not be affected, break the group. Commit.
- Add tests for unlimited clips resize. Commit.
- Small fix in tests. Commit.
- Renderwidget: Use max number of threads in render. Commit.
- Don’t allow resizing while dragging. Fixes #134. Commit.
- Revert “Revert “Merge branch ‘1904’””. Commit.
- Revert “Merge branch ‘1904’”. Commit.
- Update master appdata version. Commit.
Simple suggestion: I think it would be great to add also a percentage number along with the remaining time in the Job Queue of the rendering window.
Thanks.
Amazing work! Thank you for working on it and congrats to all the contributors, big and small!
Thanks for your work and this new version !
One thing is missing. In 18.12 it was possible to move the cursor with the mouse wheel. Now nothing happen. Can you put that thing again ?
Do you mean moving the playhead with the mouse wheel? If yes: hoover with the mouse over the project monitor and use the mouse wheel.
That’s it ! But before it’s possible to move it on putting the mouse over the head of the timeline (I don’t know if it’s clear, I mean, the band above the timeline).
Excellent! Hope this makes it into ubuntu 19.10!
Very good work, you have made Kdenlive a good candidate to be the reference video editor of free applications.
I just learn kdenlive to edit video, having hard time trying to install in my older Deepin but on Manjaro it just works.
If you have installation problems just try the AppImage which should work in any case.
Am running the newest appimage on a Lenovo W520 laptop, i7, 24gb, 512SSD. The playback and scrubbing on the timeline is very slow and jerky. Any idea what could cause that in 19.08?
What type of footage do you use (4K?). Do you try with proxy? Maybe deleting the Kdenlive cache/appimagerc see here: https://community.kde.org/Kdenlive/Configuration. Sometimes multiple/old Kdenlive installations lead to a problem.
Same here: Project with proxyclips was shown smoothly in kdenlive 17.12.3 frm openSUSE. With 19.08 it’s slow and very jerky. Like not using proxyclips.
Project settings show that proxy is enabled. Currently total showstopper here 🙁
Thanks for this new version of KDENLIVE and for the great work involved in this project.
Unfortunetly, the WIPE composition doesn’t work and render some black screen during transition. Also in the render file, sound and the video are not de-synchronised.
Hope that this will be fixed in the next release to render my video.
Thanks in advance !
As I understood the 3-point edition was designed for people with physical problems to use the mouse. It is very good that kdenlive includes this. But I would like to know what are these steps that can not be done with the mouse and yes with the keyboard. As far as I know in the vast majority of editions in this type of applications it is always faster and more efficient using the mouse than just the keyboard. Blender in this sense is a reference that consists of, one hand on the keyboard another on the mouse. And this should be the benchmark of kdenlive, because this is the concept of professional applications.
As an example see here https://kdenlive.org/en/project/3-point-editing-intro/ second example. Can you do this with the mouse? Some cutters are mutch faster with the keyboard then with the mouse.
Does changing the speed actually work? I downloaded kdenlive-19.08.0a-x86_64.appimage and here the clip turns white when I change the speed
I have a recent version of Kdenlive. When I first started it, the videos and effects worked fine. Now, I cannot load any video at all. I get a flash message box referring to “loading…?” and nothing else happens. I did not separately load the ffmpeg, or mlt file. Would this help to solve the problem? The videos are all mp4. Please advise.. Thanks
Do you run Kdenlive AppImage 19.12.0a? If not please try with this version.
I didn’t know the concept of 3-point editing and love it, my thanks to the developers for this!
A question from someone who suffers when forced to rely on the mouse too much: is there a way to horizontally scroll the timeline *without moving the playhead*? I mean something equivalent of sliding the horizontal scrollbars in the timeline. Can I do that using the keyboard (or the mouse scrollwheel!) in any way?
I know I can move the playhead (and thus scroll the timeline) using the keyboard, but I often use the playhead as a reference point to where I am in the editing process and having to move it as I browse the timeline is
Edit: I just realized what you were asking. You can scroll horizontally using the scroll wheel and holding shift. Does that work for you?
Hi Farid, thank you for this tip. You are correct, I can do that with the scrollwheel (at least on my system running the 19.12.0a AppImage without pressing Shift). This is a solid improvement over using the scroll bar, but having a keyboard shortcut would be awesome.