To remove the background from a video, you either mask the subject frame by frame in an editor, key out a green screen you shot in front of, or let an AI tool cut the subject out for you. This guide covers the editors most people already have, what each one is good at, and the quickest option if you just want the result.
One thing decides most of the effort: whether you shot in front of a green screen. If you did, any editor can key the colour out in a minute. If you did not, someone (or something) has to tell the software where the person ends and the background begins, in every frame.
Want the short way?
Upload a clip in your browser and download it with the background gone. 20 seconds free every month, no credit card, no watermark.
Try the video background remover →1. Adobe Premiere Pro
For green-screen footage, Premiere's Ultra Key effect removes the backdrop colour. For everything else, recent versions have an Object Mask: select the subject, let Premiere track the mask forward and backward through the shot, fix the frames where it slips, then apply the mask to the clip's opacity and soften the edge with feathering.
Good for: editors already working in Premiere. Watch out for: fast motion, hair and hands usually need frame-by-frame fixes, and you need a Creative Cloud subscription.
2. Adobe After Effects (Roto Brush)
After Effects' Roto Brush is the classic way to cut a subject out of footage without a green screen. You paint over the subject on one frame, After Effects propagates the selection through the clip, and you correct it where it drifts. Refine Edge helps with hair.
Good for: shots you want to polish by hand. Watch out for: it is the slowest option on this list and takes practice; long clips mean a lot of corrections.
3. DaVinci Resolve (Magic Mask)
Resolve's Magic Mask isolates a person or object from a few strokes and tracks it through the shot, and you can use the mask in the Color or Fusion pages to remove or replace the background. The free version of Resolve has a keyer for green screens.
Good for: colourists and editors already in Resolve. Watch out for: Magic Mask is only in the paid Resolve Studio, and it needs a reasonably strong GPU.
4. CapCut
CapCut has an automatic background removal for video clips, plus a chroma key for green screens. It is the quickest of the editors: select the clip and switch it on.
Good for: short social clips. Watch out for: several AI tools in CapCut carry a Pro badge or a usage limit on the free plan, and exporting a video with a transparent background (rather than a new background inside CapCut) is not what it is built for.
5. iMovie
iMovie only offers a Green/Blue Screen effect: it removes a green or blue backdrop you filmed in front of. It cannot remove an ordinary background.
Good for: green-screen footage on a Mac, iPhone or iPad. Watch out for: no AI masking and no transparent export.
The no-skill way: let Poof do it
If you do not want to learn masking, upload the clip to Poof's video background remover and download it with the background gone. Poof cuts the subject out of every frame and keeps the edges steady, so there is nothing to track or fix by hand, and it works without a green screen.
- Transparent video: WebM for websites, or ProRes MOV that drops straight into Premiere, Final Cut, After Effects or DaVinci Resolve.
- Green screen or any colour: an MP4 for editors and apps that expect one.
- Transparent GIF: a looping GIF for chat, email and stickers, up to 720p and without sound.
- Mask only: a black-and-white matte to use in your own compositing.
- Sound kept, no watermark, up to 5 minutes and 4K per clip, 20 seconds free every month.
A handy combination: let Poof do the cut-out, then finish the edit in the tool you already use. The transparent MOV sits on its own track above any background you like.
Which one should you use?
- You shot on a green screen: any editor's keyer (Ultra Key, Resolve, CapCut, iMovie).
- You need full manual control over one hero shot: After Effects Roto Brush or Resolve Magic Mask.
- You want a transparent or green-screen file without learning masking: Poof, in the browser.
- You need to do it for many videos, or inside your own app: the video background remover API.
For developers: remove video backgrounds with an API
The same cut-out is available from code. You upload the video (or send a link), the API answers at once with a job, you check the job every few seconds until it is finished, and then you download the result. The full reference is in the Poof API docs.
# 1. Upload: transparent WebM is the default output
curl -fX POST https://api.poof.bg/v1/remove \
-H 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
-F 'file=@clip.mp4' -F 'format=webm'
# {"id":"job_...","status":"queued","credits":65,...}
# 2. Poll until "status" is "completed" (free)
curl -f https://api.poof.bg/v1/jobs/job_... -H 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY'
# 3. Download result_url (valid for 24 hours, no key needed)
curl -fo no-bg.webm 'https://cdn.poof.bg/1d/jobs/job_.../result.webm'Playing a transparent video on a web page
Chrome, Edge and Firefox play the transparent WebM (VP9 with alpha) in a normal <video> tag. Safari ignores WebM transparency, so give it an HEVC file with alpha as the first source. On a Mac you can make one from the transparent ProRes MOV: right-click it in Finder, choose Encode Selected Video Files, pick HEVC and tick Preserve Transparency.
<video autoplay muted loop playsinline>
<source src="clip-hevc.mov" type='video/mp4; codecs="hvc1"'>
<source src="clip.webm" type="video/webm">
</video>Billing is per second of source video: 5 credits a second at up to 30 fps, 10 above, from the same credits as the image API. The free plan covers 20 seconds a month. See the video background remover API page for formats, limits and pricing.