MiniTool MovieMaker

MovieMaker by MiniTool is an inexpensive, easy-to-use video editing program. It includes a fair number of effects and gives you easy ways to join your clips, add transitions, and overlay objects and text. Some novices at video editing will be well-served by it, but it lacks tools you find in other video editing apps, such as chroma-keying, picture-in-picture, and motion tracking. You find all that in our Editors’ Choice winner for consumer video editing software, CyberLink PowerDirector, which is a better buy for the long term. You even get many of these features in free software that comes with your operating system, iMovie and Clipchamp, so beginners likely will want to start there instead.

How Much Does MiniTool MovieMaker Cost?

You can use MiniTool MovieMaker for free with all its editing, effects, and elements, and even without watermarking, but after your first three video exports, movie length is limited to two minutes. If you need to go longer than that, the best deal is the $35.99 annual subscription, since the monthly subscription of $12.99 works out to a lot more than that after just a few months. You can install the software on only one computer at that price; if you need licenses for three PCs, you pay $59.99 per year.

For comparison, for PowerDirector you pay either $74.99 per year for a subscription or a one-time fee of $139.99. Adobe’s consumer-focused Premiere Elements costs $99.99, one-time. The also-highly rated Corel VideoStudio Ultimate costs $99.99.

Can My PC Run MiniTool MovieMaker?

MovieMaker runs on PCs running Window 7, 8.1, 10, and 11. We don’t recommend Windows 7 or 8.1 because they no longer receive security updates. There’s no version for macOS. The company doesn’t specify hardware requirements, but for a pain-free experience with any video editing app, you want an above-entry-level CPU, at least 16GB of RAM, and a reasonably powerful graphics processor.

Getting Started With MiniTool MovieMaker: Templates

When you first run the program, a clear dialog presents a big red New Project button. You see a video tutorial, and less prominent buttons let you open existing projects or start with a movie template. You have a choice of nine templates in the categories of Travel, Love, Family & Friends, and Festival. When I hit the play button to preview the templates, I got an error. Not a great start.

To use a template, you must upload your own video before you see anything on the timeline. Something I like about these templates is that they resemble those in Apple iMovie; that is, they give you slots for your clips that specify what type of scene should be in the video and how long it should last. After you fill each placeholder with your clips or images, you simply have the choice to export, with no custom video editing needed or offered. That’s a boon for those who don’t want to tinker with projects, but some people would rather have more control.

A Clear Interface and Basic Editing

MiniTool MovieMaker has a clean and simple interface. Part of the reason it's so simple is it's missing many tools found in other video editing programs. If you don’t choose a template, you find yourself in a fairly standard video editing interface, which the program calls Full-featured mode. This interface is also clear and straightforward, with a dark gray color and large buttons for Media, Audio, Text, Transitions, Effects, Filters, Elements, and Motion.

Pre-trimming source clips is not an option, and you can preview them only in a small pop-up window on mouse hover. What plays in the main preview window only shows your project video, and its controls are limited, with no way to jump to the next clip or scroll ahead with the mouse.

Trimming is intuitive. You drag the left or right edge of your clip in the timeline to shorten it, or you can use the Split tool to cut it at the cursor location. There’s no chance of having empty space in your video, since the clips always snap together after you make a trim.

You don’t have the ability in MiniTool MovieMaker to overlap clips in the timeline. The additional tracks above the main timeline are just for objects and text. An audio track sits below the main video track. That means no picture-in-picture effects, though there is a Crop tool that maintains the aspect ratio of your canvas, making it more like a zoom, with no empty space in the resulting video. Another benefit for novice editors is that you don’t need to transform clips of differing dimensions to fit your project because they automatically stretch or shrink. It all fits the recurring theme of this software—limited capabilities in the name of simplicity.

The timeline track helpfully places transition boxes in between your movie’s clips, and you can easily add tracks with a plus button at the top left of the timeline. One disappointment is that you can’t use the mouse wheel to scroll the timeline, but there is a button to make all the component media tracks fit into the program window, and plus and minus buttons to enlarge and shrink the view. There’s no way to solo or hide a track. Nor can you change the relative sizes of panels as you can with most editors. If you enlarge or reduce the program window size, the program decides how big each panel is.

Easy Transitions That Add Flair

A respectable selection of transitions is at your disposal in the program, with some cool ones like Morph and Colour Distance. Left rail choices include Trending, Light, Wipe, Advanced (drastic effects like ButterflyWaveScrawler), Diagonals, Iris, PagePeel, and Reveals. You simply drag the one you want onto the target between clips in the timeline.

Hovering the mouse over any transition entry opens a mini video player showing its effects, a nice helpful touch. Strangely missing in the midst of this fairly impressive set of transitions, however, is the basic cross-fade (aka cross-dissolve transition), though a couple of similar substitutions are available: FadeGrayscale, and the more jarring Dissolve, which overlays a random grid as it transitions.

I do appreciate the top-right Property panel that lets you choose a transition’s duration and mode (overlap, prefix, or postfix). You don’t have to figure out how much to overlap your clips, as the program does it for you. Again, more-proficient users will want more control, but this approach serves novices. Also handy is the Apply to All context menu choice from the transitions’ right-click options.

Interesting But Limited Effects and Fun Filters

As mentioned, MiniTool lacks quite a number of advanced effects like motion tracking, chroma-keying, and picture-in-picture, which you can find in many consumer video editing programs. MiniTool does include some effects that are more associated with photo editing apps, such as the face-altering Beauty Skin and Big Eyes. You also get Sparkle, Fire Particles, and distortion options like VCR and water ripple.

Speed-changing ability is one of the few somewhat advanced effects that make an appearance in MiniTool MovieMaker. You can go up to 50x speed and down to 0.01x slowdowns, and you can even reverse the video. There’s no freeze-frame tool, though you can create this effect manually by inserting a still image of the stopped frame.

The Filters section in MovieMaker consists largely of looks you see in Instagram and its ilk. You can apply only one filter at a time, and another limitation is that you can’t adjust the strength of the effects with a slider, as you can in most other photo and video editing apps. A seemingly pro-level inclusion in the program is LUT support, though you can only apply the included LUTs—you can’t install LUTs you find elsewhere.

What the program includes in the Motion tool section is of minimal use. It lets you do things like zoom or rotate your video, but you have no control over the motion or speed.

The Elements panel is more useful, especially for those who make social videos. It includes emoji, arrows, and buttons every YouTuber needs: Like and Subscribe. In all, it’s a full selection of stickers, as you can tell just from the number of categories shown below.

Impactful, Intuitive Text Options

MovieMaker puts a good number of text options at your disposal, grouped by Trending, Caption, Credits, and Title. They’re good-looking, and many are animated. I like that you can edit the text right on the video preview window, and you get all the font, size, and color choices you could want, even for the animated titles.

Minimal Audio Controls, But Decent Stock Sounds

On the audio track, you can add background music, clips, and sound effects from a list of choices. The only sound-altering effects available are fade in, fade out, and volume, which you can apply to either the music track or the main video track. Forget effects like simulating the acoustics of a symphony hall or stadium, or even the ability to apply noise cancellation, all of which you can get in PowerDirector, Wondershare Filmora, and Movavi Video Editor.

Output and Performance

When it’s time to output your video project, you can choose from eight file formats (including WebM and MKV, in addition to the standard ones), and designate resolution and frame rate. To change the bitrate, you need to tap the Settings button on the export dialog. MiniTool MovieMaker's rendering speed was just acceptable, at 93 seconds. That’s not the worst performer I’ve seen, but it's in the bottom half. Below, you can see results of the rendering test for software I’ve tested.

For the test above, I have each program join seven clips of various resolutions ranging from 720p up to 8K. I then apply cross-dissolve transitions between them (FadeGrayscale in MiniTool’s case). I note the time it takes to render the project to 1080p30 H.264 at a bitrate of 16Mbps with 192Kbps 48-bit audio. The output movie is just over five minutes in length. I run this test on a Windows 11 PC sporting a 3.60GHz Intel Core i7-12700K, 16GB RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, and a 512GB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD.

The Verdict: Fine for Beginners

MiniTool MovieMaker is among the least intimidating video editors I’ve come across. True, you don’t get many of the features you find in the likes of our consumer video editing software Editors’ Choice winner, CyberLink PowerDirector, let alone in our professional video editing choice, Adobe Premiere Pro. You won’t find motion tracking, chroma-keying, or picture-in-picture effects. But for anyone who wants a simple, clear way to join some video clips with transitions, place overlaid objects and text, add music, and bling it all up with some effects, MiniTool MovieMaker may be just the ticket. Its feature set is just too limited for it to score higher in our review.