Parents' Guide to Magisto - Magical Video Editor

Magisto is not a powerful video editing tool, but it does allow teens to make short, fun, and entertaining videos quickly. In four steps, kids can shoot real-time or pull footage from the device gallery or Google Drive, select front or back camera, then choose decorative themes like Mother's Day, a little popular music for the audio, and final product duration. Magisto's built-in video editor selects the best clips and puts it all together in a matter of minutes -- depending on how long the raw footage is -- with very cool results. Mostly clear instructions lead kids along with callouts to explain stuff like waiting for results. Guests or registered users can create and watch any number of videos on their device for free, but to download mp4 files (to play on some other device) a paid account is necessary. Videos can also be created from the Magisto.com website or by using YouTube Create, though packages vary from those presented in the app.

Confusing and lengthy in-app FAQs (avoid these) and differences between the iOS, web, and Android versions (no share albums with the Android version) are compounded by instructions to download additional apps that do not actually exist on the app store. Downloading mp4s is easy but also easy to miss: On the My Movies page, select anywhere outside the arrow/play icon in the middle of the movie panel to bring up a particular movie's page with the Save to Gallery button (select to download your mp4).