How to Turn a Link or Web Upload into AI Shorts

Not every video worth clipping lives on your phone. Some live in Drive. Some were sent to you as a link. Some are sitting on your computer, too big to bother moving to your phone first.

AI Shorts handles all of that. You don't need to be a live streamer, and you don't need to move the file to a specific device. If Castream can reach the video, it can cut shorts from it.

Links that work

Paste one of these:

• A Dropbox share link
• A Google Drive share link
• A direct link to an MP4 file

One requirement, and it's worth checking before you paste: the file has to be shared so that anyone with the link can open it. A private link that only you can open won't work, because Castream needs to reach the file the same way a viewer with the link would.

If a link job doesn't work, that's the first thing to check — not the video, not the length, the sharing setting.

Uploads on the web

On a computer? Drop a video into Shorts on castream.io and get the same shorts you'd get from the app. Same limits, same output: up to 3 shorts per video, up to 60 seconds each, vertical 9:16, with word-by-word captions, a hook, a title, a description, and hashtags.

This is the natural route for a podcaster editing on a laptop, a teacher with class recordings on a computer, or anyone whose video never touched their phone in the first place.

What happens next

Once AI Shorts has the video, the process is the same no matter where it came from:

1. It listens to the whole video and picks the strongest moments.
2. It cuts up to 3 shorts, up to 60 seconds each.
3. Each short comes with captions in the style you picked, a hook line, a title, a description, and hashtags.
4. You keep the ones you like, delete the rest, and download or share them.

Linked videos and web uploads don't have live chat, so moment-finding leans on the audio and content — the same as a phone video. Streams get the extra chat signal, explained in How Castream AI Shorts Finds Your Best Moments.

Costs, in one paragraph

1 credit = 1 minute of video, however many shorts come out. A 30-minute Drive video costs 30 credits; a 45-minute one costs 45. Failed or cancelled jobs are fully refunded, and caption edits never use credits. Full details, plans, and packs are in Castream AI Shorts Credits and Pricing Explained.

A quick troubleshooting note

• Link won't load? Check the sharing setting first — anyone with the link must be able to open it.
• Video is long? Long videos are fine. The credit cost scales with minutes, not with effort.
• Captions look off? Fix words, colors, or position in the web caption editor, free of credits. See How to Edit AI Shorts Captions on the Web.

And remember the 30-day rule: shorts are kept for 30 days, so download the ones you want to keep for good.

For the other ways to bring a video in — past streams and phone videos — see How to Turn a Past Stream into Shorts with Castream AI Shorts and How to Turn a Phone Video into a Short with Castream. The full overview is Castream AI Shorts: Turn Streams and Phone Videos into Vertical Shorts, and the feature page is Castream AI Shorts.