Cisdem VideoPaw for Mac is an all-in-one multimedia tool for converting videos and audio files, downloading online videos, ripping DVDs and Blu-ray discs, editing and compressing videos, and recording screen activity, webcam footage, and audio.

This user guide explains how to use each feature, customize available settings, and access your output files.

Get Started

Download & Install

1. Download the latest version of Cisdem VideoPaw for Mac from Cisdem Official website.

Free Download

2. Open the downloaded .dmg file.

3. Drag the Cisdem VideoPaw icon into the Applications folder.

4. Open Cisdem VideoPaw from Applications or Launchpad.

Activate Cisdem VideoPaw

To access the full version, activate the software with a valid license.

1. Open Cisdem VideoPaw.

2. Click the key icon in the application window.

3. Copy-n-paste your license code into the popped-up window and click "Activate".

Video Converter

Cisdem VideoPaw lets you convert video and audio files to different formats. You can process multiple files in batches, customize output settings, manage files in the conversion list, and edit videos before conversion.

In This Section

How to Convert Videos and Audio Files

Manage Files in the Conversion List

Customize Conversion Settings

How to Convert Videos and Audio Files

Step 1 Add Media Files

1. Open Cisdem VideoPaw and select Video Converter from the home screen.

2. Add the video or audio files you want to convert by dragging and dropping them into the window, click + Add File(s) button or click File > Add Files on the top menu bar.

You can add multiple files to convert them in batches.

 

Step 2 Choose an Output Format

1. Click the output format selector associated with a file.

2. Choose your preferred format from the available categories.

3. For audio files, select the Audio category before choosing an output format.

4. To convert multiple files to the same format, use Convert to and select the desired format.

Available formats depend on the source file and the output options supported by the application.

 

Step 3 Customize Output Settings (Optional)

If you need to adjust the output quality or other parameters, open the available advanced settings. Depending on the selected format, you may be able to customize parameters such as resolution, frame rate, codec, or bitrate.

For more information, see Customize Conversion Settings.

 

Step 4 Choose a Save Location

Under Save to, select the folder where you want to save the converted files.

 

Step 5 Start the Conversion

Click Convert to start the conversion.

When the task is complete, click the big check-mark associated with the converted file to access the output.

Manage Files in the Conversion List

You can add or remove files and review your media before starting a conversion.

Add Files

Add more files by dragging and dropping them into the conversion window or clicking + Add Files button.

You can also use File > Add Files or press Command + O.

Remove Files

1. Highlight the file you want to remove.

2. Click the remove button or press Delete on your keyboard.

Removing a file from the conversion list does not delete the original file from your Mac.

Preview Files

Click the Play icon on the video's thumbnail to preview a video before converting it. This helps you confirm that you have selected the correct source file.

Edit Video Before Conversion

Video Converter includes basic video editing tools, allowing you to make adjustments before converting a video. Select a video in the conversion list and open its editing options.

Trim a Video

Use Trim to select a portion of a video for conversion. Adjust the start and end points to keep the segment you need.

In Video Converter, Trim is designed to select a single segment from a video. To extract multiple segments from the same video, use Video Editor, which provides a more advanced trimming workflow.

Crop a Video

Use Crop to remove unwanted areas around the edges of a video or adjust the visible frame. Set the crop area according to your needs.

Rotate or Flip a Video

Use the available rotation or flip options to correct a video's orientation before conversion.

Apply Other Available Edits

Depending on the editing options available in your version of VideoPaw, you may also be able to adjust other video properties before converting the file.

For more advanced editing workflows, including trimming a video into multiple segments, see the Video Editor section.

Customize Conversion Settings

Cisdem VideoPaw lets you customize output settings to meet your needs. Available options depend on the selected output format.

Choose an Output Format

Select an output format based on how you plan to use the converted file. For example, choose a compatible video format for playback on your device or an audio format for your music player.

For batch conversion, use Convert To to apply the same output format to multiple files.

Adjust Advanced Settings

To customize the output parameters, open the advanced settings for an individual file or use the settings option associated with Convert To to configure settings for multiple files.

Depending on the selected format, you may be able to adjust parameters such as resolution, frame rate, codec, or bitrate.

Save Custom Settings

If you frequently use the same output settings, save them as a custom profile when the option is available. You can then reuse the profile for future conversions.

Video Editor

Cisdem VideoPaw for Mac includes a built-in video editor that lets you trim, crop and rotate videos, add watermarks and subtitles, apply effects, manage chapters, and adjust volume — then export the edited result directly. You can apply multiple edits to the same video.

How to Edit a Video

Step 1 Add a Video

Open Cisdem VideoPaw and select Video Editor from the left side panel (under the Video category).

Add the video you want to edit:

1. Drag and drop it into the window;

2. Click the + Add File(s) button in the middle of the window;

3. Click File > Add Files on the top menu bar.

The file appears in the right panel as a thumbnail. Select the thumbnail to preview it. You can add several files and edit them one by one. 

 

Step 2 Edit the Video

Choose a tool tab above the timeline — Trim, Crop, Rotate, Watermark, Effects, Subtitles, Chapter or Volume — and apply the changes you need. You can combine multiple edits on the same video.

Step 3 Preview Your Edits

Use the playback controls below the preview window to play, pause and scrub through the video. The two preview panes show the video before and after your edits, so you can check the result in real time. The time indicator shows the current position and the total duration.

 

Step 4 Export the Edited Video

You can export all edited videos in one shared format, or give each video its own output format:

• One format for all videos: Click Convert to at the bottom of the interface to choose an output format for every edited video. Click the gear icon next to it to adjust advanced parameters such as resolution, frame rate, codec or bitrate.

• A specific format per video: Click the format button below a video's thumbnail to choose a particular output format for that individual video. Each video keeps the format shown on its own thumbnail when exported.

Then choose where to save and export:

1. Under Save to, select the folder where you want to save the edited files.

2. Click Export to start processing. When the task finishes, the edited files are saved to the location you selected.

Tips: For basic trimming, cropping or rotating before a conversion, you can also use the Edit (pencil) icon at the top-right corner of a task card in Video Converter or DVD/Blu-ray Ripper. For advanced trimming — selecting multiple segments from one video — use Video Editor.

Video Editing Tools

Trim Videos into Multiple Segments

Use Trim to remove unwanted footage and keep only the parts you want. Unlike the Trim tool in Video Converter, Video Editor lets you select multiple segments from the same source video.

1. Select Trim.

2. Click Add to create a trim segment. A new row appears showing its Start Time, End Time, Trimmed Length and a delete icon.

3. Highlight that row, set the Start Time and End Time for that segment — drag the start and end markers on the playback progress bar, or type the times directly. The Trimmed Length is calculated automatically.

4. Repeat steps 2–3 to add more segments as needed.

5. Check Merge trims into one to combine all selected segments into a single video when exporting. Uncheck it to export each segment as a separate file.

6. Preview the selected segments in the dual preview panes, then export.

This is useful when you want to extract several highlights from a long video without editing the source in a separate application.

 

Crop a Video

Use Crop to remove unwanted edges or change the video's framing.

1. Select Crop.

2. Adjust the crop area by dragging the central and surrounding handles on the preview, or change the values in the four boxes for precise size and position.

3. Pick an output aspect ratio: Keep Original Ratio, 16:9, 4:3, or Any.

4. Click Reset at any time to restore the video to its original, uncropped state.

5. Check the preview to make sure the important content stays visible, then apply the crop and continue editing or export.

Apply to All: If you want the same crop to apply to every video in the list, click Apply to All after finishing the crop.

Rotate or Flip a Video

Use Rotate to correct a video's orientation, or Flip to reverse its image horizontally or vertically.

1. Select the Rotate tab.

2. Click one of the four buttons to rotate 90° left/right or flip the video horizontally/vertically.

3. Click Reset at any time to return the video to its original orientation.

4. Preview the result and apply the change.

Apply to All: If you want the same rotation or flip to apply to every video in the list, click Apply to All after finishing the adjustment.

 

Add a Watermark

Use Watermark to add a logo or text mark to your video.

1. Select Watermark.

2. Choose Text type — type the content, pick its font and color, and set position and transparency; or choose Image type — select the image file and set its position and transparency.

3. Preview the result and apply the changes. If you want the same watermark on all loaded videos, use the Apply to All option.

 

Apply Video Effects

Use Effects to adjust the video's appearance with the available sliders and presets.

1. Select Effects.

2. Adjust Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Tint and Temperature with their sliders, and choose a special effect from the "More Effects" box.

3. Enable Deinterlacing to convert interlaced video into a non-interlaced form, if needed.

4. Preview the result and apply the changes. Use the apply-to-all option to reuse the same effects on every loaded video.

 

Add Subtitles

Use Subtitles to add or configure subtitles for your video.

1. Select Subtitles.

2. Choose an embedded subtitle track the video already includes, or import an external subtitle file from your local drive.

Tips: Cisdem VideoPaw supports .srt, .ass and .ssa subtitle files.

 

Manage Video Chapters

Use Chapter to add or manage chapter markers.

1. Select Chapter.

2. Click the add icon, fill in the end time and press Enter to create Chapter 2; repeat to add more chapters.

3. Review the chapter settings.

Cisdem also auto-recognizes chapters you created in another video editor and displays them here.

 

Adjust Video Volume

Use Volume to change the video's audio level.

1. Select Volume.

2. Slide the volume bar to raise or lower the audio.

3. Optionally tick Fade In (at the start) or Fade Out (at the end) and set the duration.

4. Click Reset at any time to restore the volume and fade settings to their original state.

Apply to All: If you want the same volume and fade settings to apply to every video in the list, click Apply to All after finishing the adjustment.

 

Download Video From Websites

Step 1 Choose Video Downloader on the Home screen

Step 2 Copy the video links/URLs from video website.

 

Step 3 Paste and load the URL

Paste the link/URL into the address box, press Enter on your keyboard or click  after the address box, Cisdem VideoPaw will start to fetch the video information and display it in the interface.

Tips:

1. In addition to the URL of individual video, you are allowed to paste the URL of playlist to directly download the videos from a playlist.

2. If you need to paste URLs in bulk, you can click  or  , and then paste the URLs in the following blank box. Please paste one URL per line, and you can switch to a new line by pressing Option+Enter.

Step 4 Select an output format you'd like to download.

Normally Cisdem will help you to auto select a proper video format with the highest quality, you can also click  to select another output format to download.

Note:

1. Cisdem will download the source video file from the online website, if the downloaded file is not compatible with QuickTime or Music, you can use Cisdem VideoPaw to convert the downloaded files.

2. Apple software is not compatible with Mp4(av01) or Mp4(vp09), so if you want to play the downloaded video files with Apple software, you are suggested to select the output format as Mp4(avc1) instead of Mp4(av01) or Mp4(vp09).

 

Step 5 Download the YouTube videos

Select a location through "Save to" to save the downloaded videos. You can click  after the video's thrumbnail to download a target video or directly click  to download all the videos at the same time. 

When the download completes, it will display a  after the video's thumbnail, you can also directly click  to access to the downloaded videos.

In addition to YouTube, you can also download videos and musics from 10000+ video-sharing sites, including Facebook, VEVO, Vimeo, Dailymoon, etc.

 

Rip DVDs on Mac

Nowadays, more and more people choose to play the videos with digitial files instead of DVD disc, but what to do when you want to watch your old memories or old but precious movies from the DVDs? In such a case, you can choose to convert the DVD into any digital format with Cisdem VideoPaw.

Cisdem supports converting both stardard and blu-ray DVDs, if you want to convert the DVD to digital formats for safekeeping, the following steps will help you to get started.

Step 1 Choose DVD Ripper/Blu-ray Ripper (depending on the DVD types that you want to rip) on the Home screen

Step 2 Import DVD/blu-ray DVD

You can directly drag and drop the DVD folder into the blank place of the main interface, click  /  or click File > Add DVD/Blu-ray on the top men bar to load your DVD.

Step 3 Mark the titles you want to convert

Normally a DVD contains several titles in it, the main titles and some short titles. You are allowed to select the titles you need to convert by ticking the check box at the left upper corner of the thumbnail.

Tips:

1. When a DVD had multiple audio tracks and subtitles, you are only allowed to select one audio track or subtitles to rip, please correctly select the audio track and subtitles after loading the DVD disc.

2. Right click one of the titles, you can choose to check all/uncheck all the titles.

 

Step 4 Select an Output format

There are various output video formats supported with Cisdem VideoPaw, just click the "Convert all tasks to" to select your desired format.

 

Step 5 Edit the video(Optional)

If you want to trim, crop or perform other edit tools on your video file, you can click  to get into the Edit window. You can get more details from Video Editor.

 

Step 6 Change the Save path as if you need through the "Save to" option and then click  to start the conversion.

Tips:

1. You can directly click  after the video to directly access to the converted video.

2. If you want to generate one video to combine all the videos in, just check on  before clicking

 

Record Screen on Mac

With Cisdem VideoPaw, you can capture anything on your Mac—including the full screen or a custom area, system audio, microphone input, and webcam footage, ideal for tutorials, presentations, gameplay, online meetings, and more.

Record Screen

Step 1 Choose Screen Recorder on the Home screen

Step 2 Click  or  

Step 3 Select the screen size and start recording

For screen size, you can choose to record custom size, full screen or some preset sizes. If you choose Custom size, you can drag the dimensions to  change the screen size.

What's more, you can also choose to enable speaker, microphone and webcame by taping the corresponding icon if you needed.

Click  to initial recording.

Step 4 End the record

You can end the record by pressing shortcut keys CMD+2 or press the Stop icon on the top menu bar.

Step 5 Locate the recorded video

After you stop the recording, the recorded video will be saved to the default directory or the directory that you've changed to. Also you can directly click  on the Video Recorder screen to locate it in Finder.

Tips: The recorded video is MP4 format by default, if you want to convert it to another format or compress it for sharing, you can directly click  and choose Convert/Compress to navigate to the Video Converter or Video Compressor screen.

 

Webcam Recorder

Step 1 Choose Screen Recorder on the Home screen

Step 2 Click  or 

Step 3 Configure the settings and click  to initial recording.

Step 4 End the record and locate the recorded video.

Click  to stop the recording, the recorded video will be listed in the following screen. You can locate the recorded video in Finder by clicking , you can also convert/compress the recorded video by clicking 

Audio Recorder

Step 1 Choose Screen Recorder on the Home screen

Step 2 Click  or 

Step 3 Choose an input microphone, an output speaker and an output format on the configure window, click  to initial recording.

Step 4 Click  to stop the recording, the recorded audio will be listed in the following screen. You can locate the recorded audio in Finder by clicking , you can also convert/compress the recorded audio by clicking 

Compress Large Files on Mac

The video compressor feature allows you to reduce the size of video files so they are suitable for emailing or uploading. You can just select a percentage or file size that you need, Cisdem will automatically compress your video files with suitable parameters. You can also choose to manually choose the parameters as you like.

Step 1 Choose Video Compressor on the Home screen

Step 2 Add media files to be compressed

You can directly drag and drop video files into the program, click  /  , or click File > Add Files on the top menu bar to add media files into the program.

After adding the video files, you can click the Play icon on the thumbnail or right click the video to play the video file. Also you can click  or right click the video to delete the wrongly added video.

 

Step 3 Select a file size you want to compress to

1. Quick Compress: You can directly click   to select a proper percentage you want to compress for all the imported video files.

2. Advanced Compress: You can click  to get into the advanced setting window to select a file size and parameter for each video file.

3. Preview compressed video: After selecting the file size, you can click  to check the compressed video.

 

Step 4 Select a save location and start compressing.

Select a proper location through the "Save to" option, click  to start compressing all the video files.

 

Merge Multiple Video Clips

The Video Merger feature in Cisdem VideoPaw for Mac allows you to combine multiple video clips into a single file in just a few steps. You can merge videos of different formats, reorder clips, and export them as one continuous video without quality loss.

Step 1 Choose "Video Merger" on the Homepage

Step 2 Add video clips into the Video Merger window

You can add video clips by dragging and dropping, clicking  /  , or clicking File > Add Files on the top menu bar to add media files into the program.

Step 3 Arrange Video Order if needed

The final merged video will follow the sequence shown in the list. Please make sure the order matches your desired playback flow. If not, you can drag and drop videos in the list to change their order.

Step 4 Choose an output format

Click "Convert to" and select an output format, click  to adjust resolution, frame rate, codec, bit rate, .etc if required.

 

Step 5 Click  to start merging video clips.

 

Play Any Video Format on Mac

Cisdem VideoPaw has a built-in video play that allows you to play any format in one place, in the following steps, we will instruduce you how to use it to play any format videos.

Step 1 Import the videos into Cisdem VideoPaw

Choose Video Converter on the Home screen, click  at the left lower corner of the program's interface to upload a video file from our local drive or simply drag and drop the target video into the program's interface.

Step 2 Play the video

Click the play button on the thumbnail of the target video or right click the target video and choose play, then it will bring you into a video play window, here you can pause or stop the video, adjust the volume and capture the images by clicking 

Tips: You can click File > Save screenshot to... to change the save location of the screenshots, also you can click File > Show screenshot in Finder to fast locate the screenshots.

If you want to play videos with more personalize settings, you can download and install Cisdem Video Player, which is totally free for the playback of videos.

 

Update Application

We always suggest users to use the latest version of the program.

When you launch Cisdem VideoPaw, Cisdem will auto check for updates.

Also, you can click Cisdem VideoPaw > Check for Updates… on the left top menu bar to manually update it.