01
You point. It edits.
Draw a box on the frame, drag across a sentence, click the one wrong word in a title. Your note sits on that exact spot and moment, and that’s what Manul changes.
Free · open source · macOS & Linux
You direct.
Manul edits.
Drop in your footage, say what you want, and point at the frame when something’s off. Manul makes the cut on your own computer and shows you a before / after of every change. You never touch a timeline.
Get Manul, freeor try it right here
timofey.mp4
BeforeAfter
Drag a box around his face
0:03.1 · box
Rendering v2
Clip: Timofey the Pallas's cat, Moscow Zoo (CC BY 4.0). Every edit here is real.
What people actually type
Say it the way you’d say it
to an editor in the room.
cut the ums, and the bit where I lose my train of thought
Every word is transcribed with its timing, so the cut lands on the exact word. 2:31 → 2:12.0:18 · box blur this number plate
Your box pins the note to that spot and that moment. Only that part of the shot changes.put my name on screen when I introduce myself
A lower third, set in real type and timed to the word. You can still drag it around after.quiet music under the whole thing
Looped to the length of the film and dipped under every sentence. You hear the mix live, before anything renders.now a vertical one for Shorts, captions burned in
16:9, 9:16 and 1:1 from the same film, reframed on what matters.
02
It proposes. You decide.
Nothing is overwritten. Every edit arrives as a new version you can scrub before and after, then keep or send back. Every version you kept is one click away.
03
Your pixels stay real.
Manul cuts your footage. It never generates fake frames. Titles and captions are real typography, drawn frame-perfect.
04
Your footage stays home.
Editing and even transcription run on your computer. The model you bring a key for only ever sees text and the odd still frame. No upload queue, no render farm.
Where it fits
Not another timeline.
Not a slot machine either.
Timeline editorsAI video generatorsManul
How you workOperate it, cut by cutPrompt, hope, re-rollSay it, point at it
Your footageYoursReplaced by generated framesYours, untouched
Where it runsYour computerTheir cloudYour computer
UndoCtrl-Z, until it isn’tStart overEvery version, kept
PriceSubscriptionCreditsFree · bring any model key
Version 0.1.0
Get Manul.
Free and open source. Bring a Claude, Gemini or OpenAI key, kept in your system’s keychain.
One line in Terminal. Updates install themselves.
brew install hormuz-labs/tap/manulNo Homebrew? Download the app:Apple silicon ·Intel. While we finish Apple notarization, open it the first time with right-click → Open.
Debian and Ubuntu: add the signed repository once, then apt keeps Manul up to date.
curl -fsSL https://apt.manul.si/manul.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/manul.gpg echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/manul.gpg] https://apt.manul.si stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/manul.list sudo apt update && sudo apt install manulOr download:.deb x64 ·.deb ARM ·AppImage x64 ·AppImage ARM
Using Claude Code, Cursor or Codex? Paste this and let it do the install.
Install Manul from https://github.com/hormuz-labs/manul. On macOS run `brew install hormuz-labs/tap/manul`. On Linux, add the apt repository at https://apt.manul.si (instructions on that page) and `sudo apt install manul`, or download the .deb or AppImage for this machine from the latest GitHub release. Then open Manul.Windows is on the roadmap.
Questions
Is it really free?
Yes. Manul is open source under the GPL-3.0. You pay your model provider directly for what the agent uses, usually cents per edit, and Manul shows the running cost as you go.
Does my video get uploaded anywhere?
No. Cutting, rendering and transcription happen on your computer. The model only receives text (your requests, the transcript) and, when it needs to look, a few still frames.
Which AI does it use?
Your pick, per project: Claude, Gemini or GPT. Add a key in Settings. A single Manul key that covers every model is coming.
Do I need to know video editing?
No. If you can describe what you want to a person, you can direct Manul. If you do know editing, you’ll get there faster: it understands “J-cut”, “punch in” and “duck the music”.
What can’t it do yet?
Multi-camera sync, handing the cut to Premiere, Resolve or Final Cut, and Windows. All are on the roadmap, in the open.
Why is it called Manul?
After the manul, the Pallas’s cat: small, patient, and unbothered by anything. That’s the editor we wanted in the room. The one in the demo is Timofey, from the Moscow Zoo.
