# How to download original clips from AI video search results > Open the results the search returned, preview each segment, keep only the ones you'd actually use, and export those. Canonical URL: https://vivu.ai/guide/how-to-download-original-clips-from-ai-video Open the results the search returned, preview each segment, keep only the ones you'd actually use, and export those. What "export" gives you depends on the kind of tool that ran the search. Some tools prepare the segment itself as a clip. Some return a timestamp you cut yourself. Some return a whole file and leave finding the moment to you. The step people skip is review. A search result is a candidate, and dropping a wrong one at the preview stage costs far less than dropping it in the edit. ## What each kind of search hands back ### Clips pasted into a chat If you upload a video to an AI chat and ask where something happens, the assistant can describe the moment and give an approximate time. There's nothing to download. You go back to your own file and cut it. You also repeat the upload in the next conversation. ### A filesystem connector Assistants connected to a folder of files can list and open files by name. They can't see the picture or hear the audio, so the most they can return is a file whose name looks right. "Downloading the clip" means taking the whole file and scrubbing it. ### Your own transcript and vector index A pipeline you build to transcribe recordings, chunk the text and embed it returns text chunks with start and end times. Downloading means cutting the source at those times with an editor or a command-line tool. You control every step. You also maintain every step, and moments that are only visual never show up, because only the words were indexed. ### A hosted video search connector This kind of connector searches footage that has been uploaded and indexed for picture and sound. It returns time segments with a page to review them and a way to export what you keep. A caveat applies across tools: when the videos are short, a quick search may return whole videos as candidates. That tells you which file to look in, not where in the file. ## Export the clips you keep from an AI chat search [Vivu](https://vivu.ai/mcp) connects to any assistant that supports MCP, such as Claude or ChatGPT, and searches one project of videos you've already uploaded. In the chat, describe the moment, for example `find the part where the instructor explains why the second method doesn't work`, and the assistant hands back a results page of openable time segments you can preview one by one. A fast search returns candidates quickly and may give whole short videos. A precise search runs asynchronously, so the assistant waits for it to finish, and it narrows to the matching segments, each with a one-line reason. On the results page, select the segments you want and choose Export original clip, which prepares the original clip for download. The results page link expires after 4 hours, so export in the same sitting or run the search again later. What happens next is ordinary post-production. The exported clips go to whoever cuts the lesson or episode, and the assistant can write a short note listing what was picked and why, so the editor doesn't have to reconstruct your reasoning. ## Review before you export One search can pull segments from several different recordings, and they won't be equally on target. Some match exactly. Some are only adjacent: a speaker mentions the topic in passing, or comes at it from the side. Read the reason next to each segment and preview the uncertain ones. Also check where each segment starts. A short one may open mid-sentence, and you'll want extra footage on each side in the edit. The export gives you source material. Trimming, captions and the cut itself stay in your editor, because this kind of tool finds footage and doesn't edit it. [Briefing an editor with existing clips](https://vivu.ai/guide/how-to-brief-an-editor-with-clips-from-existing) and [handing a selects list to editors](https://vivu.ai/guide/how-to-hand-a-selects-list-from-claude-to) cover the handoff side. ## When this path doesn't fit you Each search runs inside one project. If the footage you need is spread across projects, that means one search per project, or reorganizing first. Videos have to be uploaded to a Vivu project and indexed once in the cloud before they can be searched. That rules out footage you can't move off your own storage. Searches draw on an allowance: there's a free tier and a paid tier, and the limits are on Vivu's pricing page, /pricing. Results are openable time segments, not frame-exact timecodes. If your workflow depends on exact in and out points delivered by the search, you'll still set them yourself. You also don't need any of this if you already know which file and roughly when. Then open the file. The same goes for editors who always work from full source files. For them, a timestamp in a note does the job an exported clip would. ## How to decide Use this path when the slow part is finding the moment and handing it over, and the footage can live in one uploaded project. If the moments you need are mostly things people say and you already have transcripts, a transcript search plus manual cutting may be enough. If they're visual, or scattered across many recordings, search that returns segments you can review and export removes the scrubbing between the question and the clip. ## FAQ ### Are clips exported from AI video search frame-accurate? Usually not. Search results are time segments around the matching moment, not exact in and out points. Plan to trim in your editor, and expect to add a little footage on each side. ### Why did the link to my search results stop working? Results pages can expire. In Vivu, the results page link expires after 4 hours. If it has expired, run the search again to get a fresh page, then export from there. ### Does exporting a clip edit or re-cut the video? No. Exporting prepares the selected segment from your uploaded footage as a clip to download. Trimming, captions, color and assembly still happen in your editing software. ### Why did my search return whole videos instead of specific moments? Quick search modes often return whole files as candidates, especially when the videos are short. A slower, more precise search narrows results to the segments where the moment appears, at the cost of waiting for it to finish.