Can DaVinci Resolve search your footage by what's in the shot?
Yes, as of DaVinci Resolve 21 (final release 3 June 2026), through a feature called AI IntelliSearch - but with three conditions worth knowing before you plan a workflow around it: it is marked Studio only, clips have to be analysed before they are searchable, and what it searches is the media pool of the project you have open.
Published September 10, 2026 · Can it do this?
What it can do
AI IntelliSearch arrived with DaVinci Resolve 21, announced at NAB 2026 and released in final form on 3 June 2026. You click the magnifying glass in the Media Pool, type what you are looking for, and choose whether to search visuals, transcribed audio or metadata. Matching clips appear in the Media Pool and can be dropped into a smart bin, which is a genuinely good design - the result of a search becomes a live collection rather than a list you have to act on immediately.
In Blackmagic's NAB demonstration it recognised objects, animals, vehicles and trees, and identified a tight close-up of an elephant that was hard to read at a glance. It runs on the DaVinci Neural Engine, locally, with no cloud dependency.
The three conditions
- Studio only. IntelliSearch is marked Studio version only in the Resolve 21 reference manual. Studio is a one-time desktop licence at $295 in the US.
- Analysis first. It requires downloading a model (a faster or better variant) and running AI Clip Analysis with IntelliSearch analysis enabled before a clip is searchable. It does not inspect unprocessed clips on demand.
- Project scope. What is searchable is what is in the media pool of the project you have open. Footage sitting in folders on your drives that this project never imported is not part of the search.
Blackmagic has also said it does not currently support compositional queries - you cannot ask for "wide shots" as such - which is a fair description of the limits of frame-level content models generally.
What that means in practice
IntelliSearch is very strong for the job it is built for: finding material inside a project you are already cutting, especially a documentary or archival project with a large media pool. It is not built to be a permanent library across everything you have ever shot, because the unit of organisation in Resolve is the project, not the drive. That is the same structural limit described in why your Premiere bins don't help you next year, and it applies to Resolve's databases in the same way.
Reelary and Resolve, side by side
| Resolve 21 IntelliSearch | Reelary | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Media pool of the open project | Folders on your drives, one library across all of them |
| Licence | Studio, $295 one-time | Free tier indexes and searches without limit; Pro $99 one-time |
| Prerequisite | Import, then run AI Clip Analysis | Point at a folder; new files are picked up automatically |
| Searches | Visuals, transcript, metadata | Visuals only |
| Faces | Yes, people detection and face-based organisation | No |
| Processing | Local, Neural Engine | Local, on-device models |
| Offline archive drives | Media must be online in the project | Index stays searchable while the drive is unplugged |
| Finishes the cut | Yes, it is a full NLE | Rough cut and export only, or hand off via FCPXML/EDL |
Resolve facts checked 2026-09-10 against Blackmagic's Resolve 21 new-features material and NAB 2026 hands-on coverage. We have not run a first-hand test of IntelliSearch, and this page does not claim one - it describes documented behaviour and the conditions attached to it. Vendors change this quickly; re-check before relying on it.
When Resolve is the right answer and Reelary is not.
If you are already in Resolve Studio and the footage is already in your media pool, use IntelliSearch - it is right there, it also searches transcripts and faces, which we do not, and adding a second tool buys you nothing. Reelary is for the question that comes before the project exists: which of my drives has a shot like this, when I have not imported anything yet and may not be planning to open an NLE at all.
Questions people ask about this
Can DaVinci Resolve search footage by what's in the shot?
Yes, from DaVinci Resolve 21 onward, using AI IntelliSearch in the Media Pool. You type a description and it returns clips matching people, objects, transcript content or metadata. Three conditions apply: it is documented as Studio only, the clips must be analysed first with AI Clip Analysis, and the scope is the media pool of the open project.
Is IntelliSearch available in the free version of DaVinci Resolve?
No. IntelliSearch is marked Studio version only in the Resolve 21 reference manual. DaVinci Resolve Studio is a one-time desktop licence at $295 in the US, checked 2026-09-10.
Does IntelliSearch scan clips that have not been imported?
No. It searches clips that are in the media pool and have been through AI Clip Analysis with IntelliSearch analysis enabled; it does not inspect unprocessed clips on demand, and it does not look at folders on your drives that the project has never imported.
Does Resolve upload footage to analyse it?
No. The analysis runs locally on the DaVinci Neural Engine, using models you download through the Download Manager. Blackmagic demonstrated it at NAB 2026 as processing entirely on the machine with no cloud dependency.