Guides
Footage search guides.
Practical how-tos for the problems editors actually have with footage: finding it, organizing it and sharing it.
In short: These guides show how to find, organize and share footage with Sift, and say plainly when your editor’s built-in tools are enough.
No editor needed. Sift works on its own as a desktop app on Mac and Windows: search, preview, build Selects and share footage by link without opening an editor. The editor panels are optional.
Search video footage by description.How to find a shot in hours of footage by typing what’s in it, like “drone over the beach”, with no tagging. Steps, limits and a free trial.Find a line in hours of interviews.Remember a quote but not which interview? Search transcribed speech across every clip and jump to the moment. How it works, limits, and a free trial.Search footage across all your drives.Footage spread over external drives, NAS and old projects? How to search all of it at once, even drives that aren’t plugged in. Free trial.Find B-roll faster in Premiere.How to find the right B-roll without leaving Premiere: use the built-in Search panel, then add Sift for footage on other drives. Honest steps.Find B-roll faster in DaVinci Resolve.Use Resolve 21’s IntelliSearch for imported media, and Sift to search every drive by description and import clips to bins. Honest steps.Organize documentary footage without logging it all.A practical way to organize documentary footage by person, interview and selects without logging every clip by hand. Steps, tips and a free trial.Find every clip of one person.Name a person once and find every clip they’re in across all your drives. How face grouping works, accuracy limits and privacy. Free trial.Send dailies and selects as a link.Share a shoot folder or a Selects group as a private link that plays on any phone, with no app or sign-in. Steps, limits and privacy.Search an offline or archived drive.Find the clip you need on a drive that’s in a drawer. Index it once, then search it without plugging it in. How it works and its limits.Transcribe and search interviews on your computer.Search the words in your interviews without uploading them. Sift transcribes speech on your computer. What stays local and what doesn’t.
Updated 2026-10-22
Try it on your own footage.
Free for 3 days or 25 searches. No card. Then $99 a year for one computer, Mac or Windows. Everything in Sift, including the optional editor panels and one free link to share footage.