DaVinci Resolve Delete Clips & Gaps (+ FIX Issues 2024!)

Delete Gaps Featured

Deleting clips and gaps are very important to your editing process. Beginners and newcomers to DaVinci Resolve (versions 18.5, 18, 17, etc), are surprised to see other clips moving in the timeline after deleting a clip or a gap.

To delete a clip without moving other clips in DaVinci Resolve, right-click on the clip and select “Delete Selected” in the timeline. The shortcut is backspace (Windows) or delete (macOS). This operation leaves a gap in your track and will not affect other clips.

Today, let’s explore the above operation in detail, along with possible issues and fixes while deleting clips and empty spaces.


How to Delete a Clip without Moving Other Clips in DaVinci Resolve?

  1. Go to the “Edit” page > your required timeline containing the clip.
  2. Right-click on the clip
  3. Select “Delete Selected“.
  4. The shortcut for “Delete selected” is the backspace key (Windows) or delete (macOS).
  5. This operation deletes the selected clip without moving other clips in the timeline.
  6. “Delete Selected” leaves a gap in your track and will not affect other clips which are part of the same or different tracks (both video and audio included).
  7. This is also called “Lift Edit”.

After you’ve deleted the required clips throughout the timeline, you now see that there are a lot of empty spaces or gaps across the tracks.

Now you decide to delete all the unwanted gaps. So…

How to Remove Space Between Clips in DaVinci Resolve?

To remove space between clips in DaVinci Resolve, select the gap by clicking on it, then press the key backspace. Alternatively, you can right-click on the gap and select “Ripple Delete”. Deleting a gap moves the clips to the left side.

Therefore you must be careful before you remove an empty space.

If deleting a space results in unwanted issues like video-audio out of sync, deleting other clips, etc, then scroll down to fix the issues.


How to Delete All Gaps And Spaces in DaVinci Resolve?

To remove all the empty spaces or gaps in Resolve, go to the menu “Edit” > select “Delete Gaps”. This deletes all common gaps – gaps that are continuous from the top to the bottom tracks (including both video and audio).

Deleting common gaps will move the right side clips to the left.


“Delete Gaps” Not Working in DaVinci Resolve

When you go to “File” > select “Delete Gaps”, it won’t delete gaps that are overlapped by clips of the adjacent tracks (but will close only common gaps).

Let me explain…

From the above image, you can see there are 2 gaps in V1 and A1 but they are overlapped or bridged by clips at V2 and A2. So this gap is not common or continuous from the top track to the bottom, and hence won’t be deleted.

This doesn’t mean that the “Delete Gaps” operation is not working. The idea is not to delete all the gaps just because they exist, which might cause massive out-of-sync issues.

For more granular control over deleting gaps, you need to find them and delete them as required.


How to Find Gaps in DaVinci Resolve?

  • Go to the menu “Playback“.
  • Select “Previous” > “Gap”. The previous Gap shortcut is “Ctrl + Alt + ; “.
  • Select “Next” > “Gap”. The next Gap shortcut is “Ctrl + Alt + ‘ “.

This operation will move the playhead to the start of a gap. Now you can make informed decisions about the gaps.


How to Delete a Single Gap in DaVinci Resolve?

Click on the gap (the gap will be highlighted) between the clips. Right-click and select “Ripple Delete”. This operation will move the right side clips to the left (to close the gap) from the same track as well as other tracks.

If you don’t want to move clips from other tracks, then read the next section.

How to Delete Gap Without Moving Clips from Other Tracks?

To remove a gap without moving other clips from other tracks in a timeline in Resolve, first, disable other tracks’ “Auto track Selector” and “Ripple Delete” the gap.

  • Disable the “Auto Track Selector” icon by clicking on it for tracks that you don’t want to be affected.
  • Right-click and select “Ripple Delete”. Or press the delete key (“Shift + Backspace” in the earlier versions of Resolve)

From the above image, you can see that both V2 and A2 tracks are disabled.

Which means…

When you delete a gap at V1 or A1, it will not move the clips at tracks V2 and A2. The clips after the gap at A1 and V1 will move towards the left to close the gap.


If you want to combine deleting a clip and removing the empty space in a single click, then “Ripple Delete” will help you do the same.

How to Ripple Delete Clips in DaVinci Resolve?

To ripple delete in DaVinci Resolve, select the clips, right click and choose “Ripple Delete” (Or press the delete key).

Ripple deleting clips will delete the clips and then close the gaps immediately by moving the timeline to the left. Hence, before ripple deleting, the first step should always be to disable “Auto Track Selector” for tracks that you don’t want to be affected.

(See the previous section to learn about disabling “Auto Track Selector”)

I highly recommend reading the below detailed guide on ripple delete, and some fixes for issues that you may face:

DaVinci Resolve Ripple Delete Shortcut (+FIX Issues)


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