Video Trimmer - Free Online Tool

Who Uses Video Trimmer

Use it when: you want the best moment from a long recording, need to remove the setup and stop button from a screen recording, want to drop the waiting minutes from a meeting recording before sharing, or need a clip short enough to post or send.

Video Trimmer Features

• Instant, lossless cuts — Fast mode copies the video data without re-encoding - seconds, not minutes, and no quality loss.
• Frame-accurate option — Precise mode re-encodes at high quality and cuts exactly where you set it.
• Set points while watching — Play the video and press Set start and Set end, or type exact times to a tenth of a second.
• Never uploaded — Trimming runs in your browser, so private recordings never leave your device.

How to Use Video Trimmer

Three steps, nothing uploaded.

1. Load your video — MP4, MOV, WebM and more - up to 1 GB.
2. Mark start and end — Set them while playing, or type the times. Play the selection to check.
3. Trim and download — Fast for an instant lossless cut, Precise for an exact one. Saves as MP4.

Frequently Asked Questions

How video trimming works

A compressed video does not store every frame as a complete picture. It stores a full picture, called a key frame, every second or two, and in between it stores only what changed. That is what makes video files small enough to share, and it is also what makes cutting them interesting: a frame between key frames cannot be shown without the key frame before it.

There are therefore two ways to trim. The first copies the encoded data from the source into a new file without decoding it. It is extremely fast, because nothing is re-compressed, and it is lossless, because the bytes are exactly the ones your camera or phone recorded. The catch is that the data has to begin on a key frame, so the file keeps the video back to the key frame at or before your start and marks that lead-in as hidden; standard players skip it and begin exactly on your chosen frame. This is the Fast mode.

The second decodes the section you chose and encodes it again from scratch, starting with a new key frame exactly on your first frame. That gives a frame-accurate cut at any point, at the cost of time and a small amount of quality, since every re-encode is a fresh compression. This is the Precise mode, and it uses your browser's built-in, usually hardware-accelerated H.264 encoder at a high quality setting.

Audio is handled for you in both modes. Sound is stored in small packets of a few hundredths of a second, so it can be cut almost exactly where the video is, and the two are kept in sync in the saved file. Whichever mode you choose, the result is a standard MP4 that plays on phones, computers, smart TVs and every major website and app, even when the original was a MOV or WebM.

Marking the start and end

The quickest way to choose the section is while watching. Play the video, and when it reaches the moment you want to begin, press Set start at playhead; do the same with Set end at playhead. The bar under the player shows the whole video, with the part you are keeping highlighted and a line for the current position, and you can click anywhere on it to jump there.

For exact cuts, type the times instead. Minutes and seconds with a decimal work, such as 1:05.5, as do hours for long recordings, such as 1:02:03, or plain seconds such as 65. The fields are checked when you leave them, and a start after the end or a time beyond the video is corrected automatically, so the selection is always valid.

Before saving, press Play selection. The player jumps to your start and pauses at your end, so you can confirm the clip begins and finishes where you expect. Adjust either point and play it again until it is right; nothing is processed until you press Trim.

If you are trimming a long recording such as a webinar or a lecture, it helps to find the rough points with the timeline first and then fine-tune them in the time fields. Clicking the bar moves the playhead instantly, the arrow keys step one second at a time when the bar is focused, and the playhead time is shown underneath so you can copy it straight into Start or End.

Getting a clean result

Use Fast for most trims. It is the right choice for cutting the dead time off the start and end of a recording, splitting a long video into parts, or saving a highlight, and it never reduces quality. Browsers, phones and media players all start a fast cut on your chosen frame; if an older app or an editor shows a moment of extra video at the start, that is the hidden lead-in back to the previous key frame.

Switch to Precise when the clip is going into a video editor or an app you are not sure about, or must start on a spoken word, a music cue or a cut in the action in every program. Precise takes longer because the section is encoded again, so keep the tab open until the progress bar finishes; on a recent computer it usually takes less time than the clip lasts.

If the trimmed clip is still too large to send, run it through the video compressor next and pick a target such as 25 MB for email or 10 MB for Discord. If you only need the sound, extract it as an MP3 instead. All three tools run in your browser, so you can trim, compress and convert a private recording without it ever being uploaded.

Finally, keep the original until you have checked the clip. Preview it on the result screen, rename it before downloading if you like, and if the cut is not quite right, Adjust the trim takes you back to the same video with your start and end still set. Because nothing has to be uploaded again, trying a slightly different cut costs only a few seconds in Fast mode.