Guide
How to organize B-roll on your iPhone and find the clip later
- One way: make a few albums named for what your scripts ask for. Here are five names to copy.
- Caption or keyword the clips worth keeping. Apple's guide says you can search by captions and keywords.
- Rate or favorite the strongest. Apple documents star ratings and favorites as filters, not as things to type.
- To find a clip, type a city or state, a month or year, a person you named or a caption you wrote (Apple's search page). Its tip: add a media type such as Video.
- Under Apple's conditions, Apple Intelligence adds two things. See Apple's wording and conditions.
I'm Kyle. I built a tool for a later step, so I have a stake. I'm not an editor. The Apple facts here are from Apple's own pages, not from testing. The album names, caption wording and habit are suggestions.
Apple pages read 2026-10-04: ten from the iPhone User Guide (iOS 27; two show no version), one Mac guide (macOS 27) and two dated support articles.
Albums
Five B-roll albums named for what a script asks for
One way to name albums: by what a script asks for, not by date. This naming scheme follows the four groups of the 20-shot checklist, plus one for clips with people in them.
B-roll method notebook, whiteboard from behind B-roll working day the laptop opening, making tea B-roll events and retreats empty room, arrivals filmed wide B-roll life outside work daily walk, the trip to an event B-roll people who agreed you with a client, event guests
- Apple's albums page has the steps to make one (look for Collections, Albums, New Album), and its page on adding to albums has two ways to add clips.
- Can a clip sit in two albums? Apple's albums page never says so outright, but it notes that deleting an album leaves its items in their other albums.
Labels and filters
Labels Apple's search reads, and filters for your keepers
- Caption
- Swipe up on an open clip. Apple's information page lists a caption field among the details an item may show, to describe it and help Search find it. That page gives no steps for typing one.
- Keyword
- A tag you can search by. Apple's keywords page: in the same view, tap Add Keywords and type one or more. To search for several, put spaces between them.
- Named person
- Apple's people and pets page says a name you give someone is used for them across your library. Name people who agreed to be filmed.
- Favorites
- A filter on search results (Apple's search page) and inside an album you created (its album filter page). The Apple pages read here give no steps for favoriting a clip.
- Star rating
- Apple's star ratings page: switch on Show Ratings Controls, give a clip 1 to 5 stars, then filter the library by Rating.
A caption to try: the place, the action and the thing in frame, such as retreat kitchen, pouring tea, hands.
Search
What to type to find a clip
Each row is from the list on Apple's search page, with Apple's own limits. The last is from its keywords page.
| What you remember | What to type |
|---|---|
| The date | A month or a year |
| Where | A city or a state |
| A business | Its name. Apple's example: museums |
| The kind of scene | A category. Apple's examples: beach, sunset |
| The event | An event. Apple's examples: sports games, concerts. Its page does not say a retreat or a workshop counts |
| Who is in it | A person or pet you named |
| A piece of text | Text. Apple's examples: an email address, a phone number |
| What you wrote on it | Its caption |
| A tag you added | A keyword |
- Apple's tip: add a media type, such as Video, to narrow the results.
- Apple also documents search inside one album (its steps name a person, object or place), and two filters for videos alone: Media Types in the library, and one inside an album you created.
Apple Intelligence
Describing what you want in plain words
Apple's search page says two things about Apple Intelligence. One: a natural language description is a way to look for specific images. Two, separately: “You can also search video clips for key moments.” (Apple, iPhone User Guide, iOS 27.)
Apple's conditions: iOS 27 or later; an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max or any iPhone 16 or newer, enabled for Apple Intelligence; not every language or region; possible limits on usage.
Apple's page does not say what a key moment is, whether a result opens at that moment, or whether speech is searched. This reports Apple's documentation, with no claim about what the search finds.
A habit
After each shoot: four steps to try
- Add the day's clips to their album.
- Caption or keyword the keepers.
- Rate or favorite the two or three strongest.
- Delete the misses. Apple's delete page says they stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days, and that with iCloud Photos a delete applies on all your devices.
Off the phone
When the clips have to leave the phone
Editors and desktop tools need the clips in a folder on a computer.
- In Apple's transfer article (dated September 14, 2026), the Mac cable route imports into the Photos app, not into a folder, and the Windows route hands off to another company's instructions.
- For a folder on a Mac, the article points to Image Capture. Apple's Image Capture guide: connect the iPhone by cable, select it in the sidebar, choose a folder under Import To, then click Download or Download All.
- Apple's HEIF and HEVC article (dated December 05, 2025) recommends the newer video format but says the older one, H.264, works with more devices and systems. Two separate settings: Most Compatible (Settings, Camera, Formats) makes new videos record in H.264. Keep Originals (Settings, Apps, Photos) stops a USB import from converting clips, which Apple says might happen.
One step on a computer
Then: your clips on your script
Takehound is a tool you run in a desktop browser. You choose a folder of your own MP4 or MOV clips and paste a script. For each line it can, it picks one of your shots and gives a one-line reason. It places nothing where no shot fits. It exports a B-roll timeline (FCPXML) for DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut, not Premiere (import steps).
It does not run on a phone. It does not read the Photos library, albums, captions or keywords, and does not organize or store a library of clips. Its own page says Chrome or Safari on a Mac works best. Clip and folder names are sent with a cut (privacy), so keep client names out of them.
A script line
“Lake Louise was bluer than any photo of it.”
Takehound's reason
“A wide view of a turquoise lake between towering mountains shows just how vivid the water is.”
From the retreat recap guide: made with the Mac version of Takehound, not the browser version described here, from a typed script, the frame chosen by hand.
Other tools do this step too: AI B-roll from your own footage compares nine.
See how Takehound worksQuestions
How do you organize B-roll on an iPhone?
Can iPhone search find a moment inside a video?
Apple's search page says that with Apple Intelligence, key moments in video clips are searchable. Apple's conditions: iOS 27 or later; an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max or any iPhone 16 or newer, enabled for Apple Intelligence; not every language or region; possible limits on usage.
Do albums come across when you move clips to a computer?
Apple's transfer article does not say whether albums, captions, keywords or favorites come across. Apple's albums page says iCloud Photos keeps albums up to date on devices that use the same Apple Account. No Apple page read here says an album arrives as a folder.
More guides
- How to edit a talking head video with B-roll
When to cut away or stay on the speaker, shown cut by cut on one real 50-second talk.
- How to brief a video editor: what to send, with a template
A seven-part brief and copy-ready template for coaches handing a script and footage to a video editor.