OpenShot 4.0 shipped on August 30, 2026, and it is the largest change the project has made in its history. Three things matter for anyone who edits video on Linux, Windows or macOS: the web based timeline is gone and replaced by a native Qt one, there is now a recording workspace that captures screen, webcam, microphone and system audio straight into a project, and colour grading has moved from a handful of sliders to a proper workspace with wheels, curves, look up tables and scopes. Object masking also runs locally through ONNX models, with no account and no cloud service in the path.
The short answer
OpenShot 4.0 replaces the old web based timeline with a native Qt implementation, adds a Recording View that captures screen, webcam, microphone and system audio into a project as separate clips, and introduces a Color View with wheels, curves, look up tables and four video scopes. Ten new effects arrive, among them local object masking driven by downloadable ONNX models that run entirely on your machine. Measured against 3.5.1, blur runs 61.8 percent faster and sharpen 12.8 percent faster. Linux capture works on both X11 and Wayland through desktop portals, and Qt 6 with PySide6 support is expanded.
Open source video editors tend to grow one feature at a time, which is why a release that changes the timeline, adds a capture workspace and builds a grading workspace in the same version is worth stopping on. OpenShot 4.0 landed on August 30, 2026, and the project calls it the most ambitious upgrade it has made. That is a claim projects make often, but in this case the changelog supports it.
The timeline is no longer a web view
For years OpenShot rendered its timeline inside an embedded web view. It worked, and it explained a lot of the small frustrations: zoom that lagged behind the pointer, keyframes that were fiddly to grab, timecode you could read but not type into. Version 4.0 replaces the whole thing with a native Qt timeline.
The measured gain is modest on paper, about 3.4 percent faster timeline rendering than 3.5.1 and roughly 5.1 percent once transforms are in play. Interaction latency is what actually changed, and it is the sort of improvement that does not photograph well but that you feel within a minute of scrubbing. Editable timecode is the small feature most likely to alter your habits, because typing a position is faster than dragging to one every time.
Alongside it, the effects pipeline picked up real speed. Blur measures 61.8 percent faster than in 3.5.1 and sharpen 12.8 percent faster. Blur is one of those effects that gets stacked without thinking, on titles, on backgrounds, on transitions, so a change of that size lands on more projects than the name suggests.
Recording into the project, with the sources kept apart
The new Recording View is the feature most likely to replace a separate tool in someone's workflow. A docked panel manages input devices and shows input levels live, and you can capture microphone, screen, webcam and system audio directly into a project that is already open.
The design decision that makes it useful is that each source is recorded as its own media file and its own timeline clip. Microphone audio does not get mixed into system audio. The webcam does not get composited onto the desktop capture. Anyone who has recorded a tutorial and then wanted to duck the application audio under the voice track knows exactly why that matters, because when those two arrive pre mixed the job is no longer editing, it is repair. Capture previews on the timeline while it is running, so you can see what you are collecting rather than discovering it at the end.
On Linux, screen and webcam capture works on X11 and on Wayland, with the Wayland path going through the desktop portals and PipeWire. That is the right way to do it and the only way that works under a compositor which does not hand out arbitrary screen access. It also means the permission prompt you see is your desktop's, not the application's.
Colour grading gets scopes, not just sliders
The other new workspace is Color View. It brings colour wheels, editable curves and look up table support, along with exposure, contrast, temperature and tint, plus separate control over highlights, shadows, saturation and vibrance. Quick presets including Auto Contrast, Lift Shadows, Warm Up and Boost Color handle the routine corrections.
The part that changes how you work is the scopes: Luma Waveform, Histogram, RGB Parade and Vectorscope. Grading by eye on an uncalibrated monitor is guesswork, and scopes are how you stop guessing. Having all four in the editor rather than in a separate application is what turns colour correction from an occasional effort into something you do on every clip.
Ten new effects ship in the release: Audio Visualization, Beat Sync, Film Grain, Denoise Image, Shadow, Glow, Displacement Map, Timer, Color Grade and Object Mask.
Local masking, without an account
Object Mask deserves its own note. It isolates a subject using ONNX models that you download once and that run on your own hardware, with YOLO, EfficientSAM and Cutie named in the release for detection, segmentation and tracking. No subscription, no cloud service, no upload.
That is worth more than the feature itself. Masking that runs offline keeps working on footage you are not allowed to send anywhere, and it keeps working next year regardless of what happens to somebody's pricing page. The cost is local compute, which is a cost you can see and plan for. If you are following how the rest of the open source video stack is picking up hardware acceleration, our coverage of FFmpeg frame rate conversion on Vulkan and FFmpeg 9.0 tracks the layer OpenShot ultimately sits on top of.
Worth the upgrade, with one expectation set
OpenShot 4.0 runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and the release expands Qt 6 and PySide6 compatibility while including what the project describes as foundational Android support, which is groundwork rather than a shipping mobile application.
The honest framing is that a first release this large will have rough edges, and a timeline rewrite is exactly the kind of change that finds them in the field rather than in testing. Keep a 3.5.1 install available if you have a deadline this week. But the direction is unambiguously right: a native timeline instead of a web view, capture that keeps sources separate, grading with scopes, and machine learning features that run on your own machine. Those are architectural choices, not feature checkboxes, and they are the ones that determine what the next few releases can build on.
Sources and further reading
- OpenShot 4.0: Record, Edit, and Color Like Never Before, OpenShot blog, August 30, 2026
- OpenShot 4.0 video editor released with built in screen recording, Linuxiac
- OpenShot 4.0 adds colour grading, recording dock and Qt 6 support, OMG Ubuntu, August 2026
- OpenShot 4.0 open source video editor officially released, 9to5Linux
- OpenShot downloads
Frequently asked questions
What is the single biggest change in OpenShot 4.0?
The timeline. Previous releases drew the timeline as a web view embedded in the application, which is why zooming, dragging and keyframe editing always felt slightly detached from the rest of the interface. Version 4.0 replaces it with a fully redesigned native Qt timeline, which brings smoother zooming, improved keyframe handling and editable timecode. Timeline rendering measures about 3.4 percent faster than 3.5.1, rising to roughly 5.1 percent once transforms are involved, but the raw percentage understates it: the win is in responsiveness during interaction rather than in a single benchmark number.
How does the new recording feature work?
There is a dedicated Recording View with a docked panel for managing input devices and watching input levels live. You can capture microphone, screen, webcam and system audio directly into an existing project, and each source lands as its own media file and its own timeline clip. That separation is the useful part: microphone audio stays independent of system audio, and the webcam stays independent of the desktop capture, so you can cut, level and mask them separately instead of untangling a single mixed file afterwards. Recording previews on the timeline while capture is running.
Does the AI object masking send anything to a server?
No. The masking feature downloads ONNX models and runs them on your own machine. The release names YOLO, EfficientSAM and Cutie as the models involved, covering detection, segmentation and tracking respectively. There is no subscription and no cloud service in the processing path, which matters both for footage you cannot upload and for the practical reason that an offline feature keeps working when a vendor changes its pricing. The tradeoff is local compute: masking cost is paid by your own processor or graphics card.
What does the colour grading workspace actually contain?
A Color View with colour wheels, editable curves and look up table support, plus exposure and contrast controls, temperature and tint, and separate handling for highlights, shadows, saturation and vibrance. For assessment rather than adjustment there are four scopes: Luma Waveform, Histogram, RGB Parade and Vectorscope. Quick presets such as Auto Contrast, Lift Shadows, Warm Up and Boost Color cover the common corrections without opening the wheels. This is the first OpenShot release where you can grade against scopes instead of grading against your monitor and hoping.
Which platforms and toolkits does 4.0 support?
Windows, macOS and Linux, with Linux covering both X11 and Wayland. Screen and webcam capture on Wayland goes through the desktop portals rather than trying to grab the display directly, which is the correct approach and the reason it works at all under a compositor that does not allow arbitrary screen access. The release expands Qt 6 and PySide6 compatibility, and the project describes foundational Android support as included, meaning the groundwork rather than a shipping mobile application.