There is a free video editor hiding inside Google Drive — how do you use Google Vids without paying for editing software?

Google Vids is a free video editor inside Google Drive and Workspace: build scene by scene like Slides, turn a deck into a narrated video, record with a teleprompter, export as MP4 or publish to YouTube. Desktop editing only, 30-minute limit, and AI features depend on your plan.

Short answer: you may already own a video editor and not know it. Google Vids is Google’s video editor that lives inside Google Drive and Workspace, and for most people it costs nothing extra to open and use. If you can make a slide deck, you can make a Vids video: it is built scene by scene, much like Google Slides, instead of on a complicated timeline full of tracks and keyframes.Why it matters: simple videos — a birthday message, a school project, a quick how-to for work — used to mean downloading editing software, learning it, and exporting a huge file.

Vids skips all of that. It runs in your browser, saves to Drive like a document, and shares with a link, so the tool most people need was hiding in a place they already use every day.How to use it, step by step:1. Start a project.

Go to vids.new in your browser, or open Google Drive, choose New, then Google Vids.2. Build scene by scene. Each scene is like one slide: add text, images, clips and shapes, then move to the next scene instead of wrestling with a timeline.3.

Turn a Slides deck into a narrated video. If you already have a presentation, start from it — your slides become scenes, and you can record narration over them.4. Record with the built-in teleprompter.

Your script scrolls on screen while you record, so you can read naturally without memorising lines.5. Polish the sound and pace. Vids uses separate audio tracks, and an update on October 23, 2026 added per-clip playback speed, so you can slow one clip down or speed another up.6.

Share or export. Share the video with a link just like a Doc, export it as an MP4 file, or publish it straight to YouTube.The honest limits: editing is desktop-only — phones can watch Vids videos but not edit them. Each video can run up to 30 minutes.

And the advanced AI features depend on your account and plan: if AI options do not appear, that is your account level, not a bug in the app.Pro tip: do not start from a blank project. Start from a Slides deck you already have — half the video is already built.