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Dragging a clip edge with the selection tool changes that clip and leaves a gap or an overlap behind. The four trim tools each decide what happens to the neighbours, so you can fix timing without repairing the track afterwards.
The Studio timeline toolbar with the four trim tools

The timeline toolbar: selection, razor, then ripple, roll, slip, and slide.

One tool is active at a time. Press its key again, or press V, to go back to the selection tool.
All four work on the grabbed clip’s own track. Rippling a video clip does not ripple the audio underneath it; move the audio yourself, or select both.

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Ripple

Drag a clip edge. The clip gets longer or shorter, and everything after it on the track shifts by the same amount, so no gap opens and nothing overlaps. The video gets longer or shorter by exactly what you trimmed.

Ripple trimming a clip's out point earlier. The two clips after it follow.

Reach for ripple when the clip is too long or too short and everything after it should simply move up. It is the tool that changes the total running time.

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Roll

Drag the cut between two clips. One grows by exactly what the other gives up, so the cut moves and nothing else does. The video stays the same length.

Rolling a cut to the right. The clip before it grows, the clip after it shrinks, and the third clip never moves.

Reach for roll when the cut is in the wrong place but the section is the right length. If a clip further down the track moves, you used ripple by mistake. Roll needs a clip on both sides of the cut. Grab an edge with nothing across it and Studio says so rather than starting a gesture that would do nothing.

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Slip

Slip is sliding a photo behind a picture frame. The frame is the clip: where it sits on the timeline and how long it lasts. The photo is the media. Slipping never moves the frame, it moves the photo behind it, so you see a different part of the same source in the same hole.

Slipping a video clip. The picture changes while the clip stays exactly where it was.

Reach for slip when the timing is right but you are showing the wrong moment: the shot starts a beat too early, or the take you want is a second later in the file. Slip writes data-playback-start, the clip’s in point. Only clips with a source to re-point can be slipped: video, audio, images, and nested compositions. Text and shapes are generated at render time and have no in point, so Studio refuses and tells you why.

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Slide

Drag the clip along its track. It keeps its own length and its own media, and the clips either side give up and take on exactly the time it travelled.

Sliding a clip to the right. The clip before it stretches, the clip after it shrinks, and the clip itself is untouched.

Reach for slide when a moment lands at the wrong time but the shot itself is right and the section must stay the same length. The clip you grabbed never changes duration, which is how you tell slide from roll at a glance.

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Which one do I want

Ask what must stay fixed:
  • The total running time can change and everything after should follow: ripple.
  • The running time must not change and the cut is in the wrong place: roll.
  • Nothing on the track should move and the picture is wrong: slip.
  • Nothing downstream should move and the clip is at the wrong moment: slide.

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Snapping and undo

Trims respect timeline snapping, so an edge lands on the playhead, a neighbouring boundary, or a beat rather than a hundredth of a second either side. Press N to toggle it. Every clip a trim touches is written in one step, so a single undo puts all of them back together rather than one at a time.

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When a tool refuses

A tool tells you why instead of running a gesture with no effect:
  • a roll with no clip across the cut;
  • a slip on generated pixels, which have no in point to move;
  • a ripple or a slide blocked by a locked clip on the track.