Video cutter

About this tool

Cut a video down to the part you want, or cut a part out of the middle. Choose a video, drag the two handles on the timeline (or type exact start and end times), preview the selection and press Cut. The result is a new MP4 that you can save straight away. There is no upload, no sign-up and no watermark.

Two modes cover the two usual jobs. Fast mode copies the video without re-encoding, so it finishes in a moment and loses no quality, but it can only cut at keyframes. Precise mode re-encodes the clip so the cut lands on the exact frame you chose. You can also paste a link instead of choosing a file, for example to trim a clip you found online before saving it.

Fast or Precise: which should I pick?

Most video files store a full picture only at intervals, called keyframes, and describe the pictures in between as changes. Fast mode never decodes the video: it copies the stored data between your two points. That is why it is nearly instant and why the quality is identical to the original. The price is that a cut can only begin on a keyframe, so the clip may start a little before your start point. On many phone clips keyframes come every second or two, but some screen recordings and downloaded videos have much longer gaps.

Precise mode decodes the video and encodes it again with H.264 at a high quality setting, so the first frame is exactly the one you picked and the end falls where you put the handle. It takes longer, roughly in proportion to the length of the selection and the size of the picture, and it makes a small, usually invisible, quality change. If Fast mode cannot copy a format into an MP4 (for example some WebM files), the tool says so and re-encodes automatically.

Keep a part or remove a part

Keep selection is the classic trim: you get only what is between the handles. Remove selection does the opposite and is handy for cutting out a mistake, a pause or an advert from the middle of a recording. The two outer pieces are joined into one continuous video, and the timeline shows the removed part in red while you work.

The Preview selection button plays exactly what will be in the result, including the jump over a removed section, so you can check the cut points before spending time on the export.

Getting a clean cut

Zoom in on the problem by playing the video and pausing on the frame you want, then press Set start at playhead or Set end at playhead. The handles move in steps of a tenth of a second, and the arrow keys nudge a focused handle by 0.1 seconds (hold Shift for one second). For a cut inside speech or music, leave a fraction of a second of silence rather than cutting on a word.

• Use Fast mode for quick trims of long recordings where a second of slack at the start does not matter.
• Use Precise mode for short clips, loops, GIF-style moments and anything that must start on a specific frame.
• To split one video into two files, run the tool twice: once keeping the first part and once keeping the second.

What the result looks like

The output is always an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio, set up to start playing before it is fully downloaded. Fast mode keeps the original codecs. Videos without sound stay silent, and portrait phone videos keep their orientation. The tool shows the exact length and size of the result, and you can open it straight in Compress video to shrink it, Merge videos to join it with other clips, or MP4 to MP3 to keep only the sound.

Limits and tips

• Video files up to about 1 GB work on most desktop computers, with a warning above 300 MB. On phones and tablets the limit is about 300 MB.
• Fast mode is limited by keyframes: the start can move earlier, usually by under two seconds, and the end can be slightly off. Choose Precise when exact frames matter.
• Precise mode runs on a single processor thread, which is why the site needs no special security settings. A computer is several times faster than a phone, and the tool shows an estimate and the live speed.
• Some formats (for example HEVC or MOV files from certain cameras) cannot be played by every browser, so the preview may not work. The cut itself still works: type the start and end times instead.
• Keep the tab open and the screen awake while a long cut runs. Cancelling stops the job and keeps your settings so you can try again.
• The first run downloads the conversion engine (about 10 MB compressed) and keeps it in your browser's cache.