Plain terms, plainly put.

The short version

Sift is licensed, not sold: a license lets one computer at a time use Sift for as long as your subscription is active. Your footage is always yours. Use Sift for footage you have the right to use, and follow the rules of any service you connect to it.

Your license

Free trial. Free for 3 days or 25 searches. No card. The 3 days start when your first footage is ready to search, and the trial ends after 3 days or 25 searches, whichever comes first. A trial keeps the terms it started with: trials started before October 2026 keep theirs (3 days or 50 searches).

Subscription. A license costs $99 a year, renews each year until you cancel, and covers one computer (Mac or Windows) at a time. You can move it to another computer from Sift (License › Use on another computer).

What you may do. Install and use Sift for your own work or your organization’s work, on the computer the license is active on.

What you may not do. Share, resell, rent or sublicense your license or Sift itself; get around the trial, license checks or limits; or copy, reverse engineer or modify Sift except where the law allows it.

Payments, renewals and refunds

Purchases are handled by Polar (polar.sh), the merchant of record, under its terms. Your Sift subscription renews automatically each year, and a Link sharing plan each month. You can cancel either any time from the link in your receipt email; each keeps working until the end of the period you paid for. If Sift isn’t working for you, email us and we’ll make it right, including a refund where appropriate.

Your footage and your data

Your footage, and everything Sift learns from it, belong to you. We don’t get any rights to them. Sift indexes footage on your computer; our privacy page explains everything it sends anywhere else, and why.

You’re responsible for having the right to use the footage you add to Sift, connect to it, or share through it, including any people who appear in it.

Services you connect

Some features use other companies’ services: Polar for licenses and Link sharing plans, our sharing service (hosted by Cloudflare) for Link sharing, Resend for email, AI assistants you choose to connect, and Frame.io (Adobe) if you connect it. When you use them, their terms apply too.

Frame.io footage isn’t used for face recognition, and you may not use Sift to identify people in content from Frame.io or other connected services.

We may change or stop a connection to another service if that service changes its terms or stops offering what Sift relies on.

Link sharing

The free link. Every Sift includes one free link: up to 10 minutes of footage, open for 3 days.

Plans. For more, Link sharing is a monthly add-on: 100 hours for $29 a month or 500 hours for $79 a month, paid through Polar. Hours are the running time of the footage online across your links. When a plan is full, new footage can’t go online until there’s room; links you already have keep working. A plan doesn’t change your $99-a-year Sift subscription, and each editor still needs their own Sift license.

Links need Sift. Links work while your Sift subscription or free trial is active. If it ends, or a Link sharing plan ends, your links keep working for 2 weeks, then pause. If you don’t renew within 30 days of the pause, the links stop and their footage is deleted.

What you’re responsible for. Share only footage you have the right to share, including permission from the people who appear in it where the law needs it, and share it only with people you’re allowed to. You choose who can open a link: the people you invite, or anyone with it if you use Copy link. Removing someone or deleting a link stops access at once, but it can’t undo copies someone already made.

Downloads. Turning downloads off removes the download button for that link; it can’t stop someone recording their screen.

AI assistants on a link. You can let the people a link is for connect their own AI assistant to search it, and set usage terms (like “internal use only”) that their assistant is shown with every answer. You’re responsible for choosing to allow it. Their assistant gets small copies and details only, never your original files; it can ask you for originals, which you decide on.

Our part. We keep shared footage available only through its link, and don’t look at it except to keep the service running, to deal with a report of misuse, or when the law requires it. We may pause or remove a link that breaks these terms or is used for anything unlawful or harmful, and we’ll tell you when we do.

If someone shares footage with you

You may search, watch and send Selects back for footage shared with you, for the purpose it was shared. Don’t copy, republish or pass it on unless the person who shared it says you may. The person who shared it can see whether you’ve opened it and the Selects you send, as our privacy page explains.

If the person who shared it allows AI assistants, you may connect yours to search it for you. It acts for you: you’re responsible for it following these terms and any usage terms the person set, and they can see what it searched and opened. Don’t use an assistant to copy a whole library, get around the daily limits, or reach footage that wasn’t shared with you.

Reporting misuse

If you think a shared link contains something unlawful, or something you own the rights to, choose Report this link at the bottom of its page, or email support@siftclips.com with the link. We’ll look at it promptly and may pause the link while we do.

Where Sift can be used

You may not use Sift, or let others use it, in a country or by a person under U.S. trade sanctions or export restrictions. Connected services may add their own limits; for example, the Frame.io connection isn’t available in mainland China or Russia.

Updates and changes

We update Sift regularly, and features may change over time. If we change these terms in a way that matters, we’ll update this page and the date below before the change applies.

Ending your license

Your license ends if your subscription ends or if you break these terms. When it ends, Sift stops searching and syncing; your footage is untouched and your index stays on your computer until you delete it. Your links pause 2 weeks later, as described under Link sharing.

No warranty, and limits

Sift is provided “as is.” We work hard to make it reliable, but we can’t promise it will be error-free or find every moment, and you should keep your own backups of your footage.

To the extent the law allows, Boatner Studios isn’t liable for indirect or consequential losses, and our total liability for any claim is limited to what you paid for Sift in the 12 months before the claim.

The legal bits

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, USA. Adobe, Adobe Premiere, Frame.io and Premiere Pro are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries. Apple, Final Cut Pro, iCloud and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. DaVinci Resolve is a trademark of Blackmagic Design Pty Ltd. Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies. Google Drive is a trademark of Google LLC. Dropbox is a trademark of Dropbox, Inc. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic, PBC. ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI. Sift Clips is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by any of these companies.

Sift Clips is a product of Boatner Studios. Questions about these terms: support@siftclips.com.

Updated 2026-10-28 · Questions: support@siftclips.com