How to Edit AVI Files on PC for Beginners

Your AVI clips can go straight into an AVI video editor without converting. This guide shows how to edit AVI video files on a PC, with vloggers, families with old home videos, and gamers in mind.

Movavi Video Editor is an intuitive video editor with customizable video templates, one-click AI tools, and hundreds of drag-and-drop effects. It’s a desktop app for Windows and macOS, and it opens your AVI clips as they are. Movavi Video Templates is a multi-style library of customizable, pro-looking, modular templates for any kind of video. Swap your clips into its Blocks, short pre-edited segments, like an intro or a countdown, where you drop in your own videos, photos, and text. You can reorder, add, or remove them.

The path is short for a vlog, a trip recap, or an unboxing: add the AVI clip, trim it, cut the pauses, export. Time to cut to the chase.

Hover over a clip or move along the timeline and you get an instant preview of the exact frame. Most tools work in a single click, and effects go on with a drag and drop.

Step 3 is where the AI earns its keep. Silence removal finds the pauses in your talking footage and cuts them. In our internal testing, it accelerated editing by nearly 5 times compared with cutting by hand on the timeline. For a cut in the middle of a clip rather than at its ends, the Blade tool makes frame-level cuts without moving the position marker.

A few small tools save a clip that’s almost right:

• Rotate turns a clip in 90° steps, and a separate slider straightens a tilted horizon.
• Cropping has a Manual mode where you drag the crop frame. It also removes black bars and fixes mismatched aspect ratios.
• Fade adds a fade-in or fade-out to a clip and works alongside transitions.
• Freeze frame holds a moment for 4 seconds by default, and you can change the length.
• Video speed runs from 0.01x to 100x, with an Original tone option that keeps the pitch steady.

Importing clips after the template is open. Add your AVI files with Add Files before you choose a template, so every Block can be filled in one pass.

Moving the AVI file mid-project. If you move or rename a clip after adding it, Movavi Video Editor detects and relinks moved or missing files. Autosave also recovers your work if the program closes unexpectedly. To carry an edit to another PC, save a portable project, which stores the project together with all its media.

Exporting without picking a format on purpose. MP4 is the recommended choice for broad compatibility, and AVI is also available as an output format. Match the export to where the video is going. Export for devices has presets for iOS and Android phones and tablets, PlayStation, and Xbox. Direct upload sends the file to YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, or TikTok, with title, description, and privacy settings for each platform.

Running silence removal on autopilot. Auto mode is a solid start, and pause length and volume thresholds stay adjustable. If a cut sounds too tight, adjust them and try again.

Treating a test export as the final one. Exports from Movavi Video Editor Free carry a watermark and a length cap, while the full version exports without either. Test every tool in the software on your own AVI clip first, then export from the full version when you’re ready.

A template saves the assembly work. It’s a ready-made project and it arrives with music, transitions, and text already set. Block types vary, for example an intro, a countdown, a quick cut, or an animated collage.

Say you have AVI clips from a weekend trip and want a travel video with some structure. Click Add Files and select the clips first. Open the Templates tab, choose a template that fits the trip, and drop it onto the timeline. Then double-click a Block on the timeline, or open Clip settings, and replace the placeholder with your own clip or photo. Go Block by Block, then reorder, add, swap, or delete Blocks until the length fits. Retype the Block text last.

Nothing is locked. You can keep the template’s music or replace it, and keep, swap, remove, or add transitions and effects. Trimming, silence removal, and subtitles come after the Blocks are filled, because they work on the filled timeline. Finish with Export, then Start.

Several templates come with the full version of Movavi Video Editor at no extra charge. The whole library of templates and Blocks needs the separate Movavi Templates subscription.