How to Remove Gaps Between Clips in the Timeline in DaVinci Resolve

If you’re a new DaVinci Resolve user, you may have noticed that gaps or empty spaces sometimes appear between clips in your timeline. And if you like your timeline neat, well, they will drive you nuts. So, how do you remove gaps in the timeline in DaVinci Resolve?

To remove gaps in the timeline in DaVinci Resolve, click the space between clips and then press “Delete” (on Windows) or Backspace (on Mac). Alternatively, click “Edit” in the menu and select “Delete Gaps”.

In this post, I’ll show you three easy ways to remove gaps in your timeline. Let’s dive right in!

Removing gaps from the timeline in DaVinci Resolve

1. Use the “Ripple Delete” key 

The Ripple Delete key is the first way to remove gaps in your timeline. Here’s how to do that:

1. Click on the space between the two clips. It will highlight what has been selected.
2. Next, press the “Delete“ key (if you’re on Windows) or the “Backspace” key (if you’re on Mac). That will delete the space and adjust the clips around it to fill the gaps. Easy peasy! 

Alternatively, you can right-click and select “Ripple Delete“. This performs the same action as the above method.

2. Using the “Delete Gaps” option in “Edit”

Suppose you have many clips on your timeline separated by gaps. In that case, going through every space individually can be time-consuming. To make the process easier, you can use DaVinci Resolve’s Delete Gaps feature and delete all gaps at once:

1. Click on the “Edit“ menu.
2. Scroll down and select “Delete Gaps“. All the gaps on your timeline will be removed at once, and the clips will be automatically adjusted to fill in the spaces. That can save you a lot of time if you’re dealing with hundreds of gaps on your timeline.

3. Create a quick keyboard shortcut

Finally, if you want an even faster way to delete all those pesky gaps (Let’s say you happen to delete gaps often), we recommend creating a DaVinci Resolve keyboard shortcut for the Delete Gaps feature. Here’s how:

1. Click on “DaVinci Resolve” in the top left corner of your screen.
2. Go to “Keyboard Customization“.
3. Go to “Application“ and then “Edit“.
4. Scroll down until you find “Delete Gaps” and assign a keyboard shortcut for it – click on the red box under the “Keystroke” column. Then press whatever key you’d like to assign the delete gaps action.
5. Now, whenever you need to get rid of those extra spaces quickly, use your shortcut, and poof – they’ll be gone!

Tip: Here are a few essential guidelines to consider when assigning a keyboard shortcut: 

• Always use something easy to type quickly – such as “I-A” and “Ctrl+K“, to mention a few.
• Review your keyboard shortcuts and ensure they’re not already assigned to something else.
• Use shortcuts you can quickly memorize and don’t have to look up.

Video tutorial

This quick video will show you how to remove gaps in the timeline in DaVinci Resolve if you prefer a more visual learning method that requires less reading:

FAQ

What other timeline organization features are available in DaVinci Resolve?

Answer: In addition to the Delete Gaps and Ripple Delete features, DaVinci Resolve offers other timeline organization tools such as the “Snap” feature for automatically aligning clips, markers for indicating important points in your timeline, and the ability to create compound clips for grouping multiple clips together.

Conclusion

Learning how to remove gaps in the timeline in DaVinci Resolve timeline doesn’t have to be complex or time-consuming – with the three easy ways we’ve outlined above, anyone from beginners to experts can quickly get rid of those empty spaces easily.

If you’re exploring more ways to clean up your project and your DaVinci Resolve software, you can read How to delete optimized media to free up some storage space or how to save DaVinci Resolve layouts if you have a layout you love and want to keep.