Questions, answered.

CutroomOS is a Mac app that makes the video library you already have searchable and answerable. You connect the folders and drives where your footage lives, choose which recordings to index, then find moments by describing them, ask questions with answers cited to the exact source time, and give AI assistants read-only access to chosen folders through MCP. Your original files stay where they are.

People with more footage than they can remember: solo creators with B-roll across several drives, freelance editors working through client folders, documentary and interview editors who need to verify quotes, and anyone who wants an AI assistant to work with their own recordings. See Workflows.

No. CutroomOS finds and verifies material; you keep editing in the editor you already use. There is no editing timeline, clip rendering, export or automatic montage at launch. You can play a moment, reveal the original file and copy its path and timecodes.

A cutting room is where footage becomes a story. “OS” reflects the aim of being one home for understanding and managing a whole video library. It is pronounced “cut-room O-S”.

CutroomOS is designed for libraries spread across many folders and external drives. Your library appears as it is discovered, and each video becomes searchable once it is indexed, so you can start working before everything has finished. We will publish tested library sizes with the first public release.

Indexing turns each recording you select into time-based evidence: recognized speech, visible on-screen text and visual observations, each tied to the time range it came from. When you describe a moment, CutroomOS searches that evidence and returns matching moments with the source file, exact in and out times and the signal that matched. See Search.

Scenes and settings (“wide shot of waves at sunset”), sounds such as applause or rain, something that was said (“the quote about delivery delays”) or text that appears on screen (“slides showing the pricing table”). What a search can find depends on the evidence available for each recording.

Yes, for recordings whose speech has been indexed. Spoken words become searchable evidence linked to their time range, so a result opens at the moment the words were said. The search guide explains how to write useful queries.

Each material claim in an answer carries a citation to a specific recording, a time range and the type of evidence (recognized speech, visible text or a visual observation). Opening a citation plays that moment from your original file. See Analyze and the citations guide.

The answer says so. CutroomOS distinguishes a supported answer, a partial answer with its limitation, insufficient evidence and conflicting evidence. If some selected videos are not indexed, the answer states that it may not cover every mention. “No matches in the indexed portion” is never presented as proof that a scene does not exist.

No. Face recognition and automatic naming of people are not part of CutroomOS at launch. Speaker labels describe who spoke within a recording; they do not identify real-world people.

No. Results are ranked and each one states the signal that matched with a short explanation. CutroomOS does not show a percentage it cannot stand behind.

Your original video files are never uploaded, moved, renamed or deleted. When you choose to index a recording, permitted derived material such as sampled frames, audio and transcripts may be processed by intelligence services to produce searchable evidence. The app explains this before any indexing starts. Read Privacy and data.

No. You decide which folders and recordings are indexed. Discovery lists your videos without processing their content, and you can index everything, a selection or nothing. Automatic indexing of new videos is a per-folder choice you make after giving consent.

Partly. You can browse your library and play local videos offline, and filter by filename and folder. Content search and answers rely on intelligence services, so they need a connection. Fully offline video intelligence is not offered.

Videos on that drive stay in your library with their last known details and are marked as disconnected. Previously indexed evidence can still appear in results; playing a moment needs the drive, or another verified copy of the file, to be connected. Nothing is deleted.

No. Linking a folder never copies, moves, renames or deletes its media. CutroomOS reads files where they are and keeps a library view on top of your existing folder structure.

MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is an open standard that lets AI assistants call tools and read data from other applications. CutroomOS runs a local MCP server on your Mac so an assistant you authorize can search your footage and ask cited questions about it. See Connect through MCP.

Yes. You create a named connection in the Mac app, choose the folders it may use and the kinds of evidence it can receive, then follow the setup for your assistant. The assistant can search for moments and ask cited questions within that scope. The MCP setup guide covers the steps.

Claude and ChatGPT. Connect either one from the CutroomOS Mac app, choose the folders it may read, and revoke access whenever you like. CutroomOS does not expose your Mac directly to the internet. See the MCP setup guide.

No. Each connection only reaches the folders and evidence categories you grant, and folders added later are not included unless you choose that explicitly. Access is read-only: assistants cannot delete, move, rename, export or write files, or start indexing. You can revoke a connection at any time, which stops all further access.

CutroomOS is coming soon for Mac, starting with a private beta. Join the private beta and we will email you when a place opens.

CutroomOS is coming to Mac first. Other platforms are not available yet.

A tested support matrix will be published with the first release. CutroomOS identifies videos by probing the media itself rather than trusting the file extension, and it explains when a recording can be indexed but needs another app for playback.

There are four plans: Free, Creator at $24 a month, Pro at $79 a month and Power at $199 a month. Prices are in USD, with applicable taxes added at checkout. See what each plan includes on the pricing page.