OpenShot Video Editor Is Now Available as a Snap

OpenShot arrives on the Snap Store

The OpenShot video editor is now officially available on Canonical's Snap Store. As OMG! Ubuntu's Joey Sneddon reported, the official snap of the Qt-based editing tool went live on September 22, 2026, and it can be installed via App Center on all supported Ubuntu releases. Because a Deb package still ships in the Ubuntu archives, two results appear in a search for the app.

Why the snap matters

The main benefit is easier installation, but the more interesting angle is version access. Snaps bundle their own dependencies, so the snap makes newer OpenShot versions available to users on older Ubuntu LTS releases, whose system Qt versions might otherwise prevent them from running the official PPA packages. In practice that means people on long-term-support systems can now get the latest OpenShot without upgrading their whole distro.

What's new in OpenShot 4.0

The timing matters because OpenShot 4.0, released in August, added a swathe of notable improvements, including long-awaited colour grading tools, better multitrack recording, and deeper integration with the cloud-based ComfyUI AI service. Getting that release into an easy-to-install snap widens its reach considerably.

How to install it

You can install the snap from App Center, or from the command line with: sudo snap install openshot-qt. At the time of the announcement the sandboxed version was not quite install-and-go: it required granting explicit permissions before the app could access the microphone, webcam, or open and save files on removable and external drives, done via Settings > Apps > OpenShot or with snap connect commands. The developer had requested auto-connect approval and a rename to simply 'openshot', both of which may streamline this soon.

The bigger picture on packaging

OpenShot's PPA and AppImage builds aren't going anywhere, so users who avoid snaps still have options, and a formal Flathub release may follow now that the Snap Store debut is done (the current Flathub package is unverified and, as of the report, not yet on 4.0). More packaging choice is generally good news for users: the same app, more ways to install it, on more versions of the OS.

Related on Skillo

See also: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 'Noble Numbat', 7 vintage Linux desktop features worth bringing back.

Sources

• OpenShot is now officially available as a Snap (Joey Sneddon, OMG! Ubuntu, 22 Sep 2026)

Published date reflects the original event date (2026-09-24). This article is original Skillo editorial written from the sources above; facts were verified in September 2026.