Trim an MP4 to keep only the part you need: remove a slow start, an awkward ending, or take a short clip out of a long recording. The trimmed video is an MP4 again, with its sound.
How to trim an MP4
- Upload the MP4 (up to 2 GB and 3 hours).
- Enter the Start and the End: seconds (
42or42.5), minutes and seconds (3:20) or hours, minutes and seconds (1:03:20). Leave the end empty to keep everything after the start. - Choose how to cut, and download the trimmed MP4.
Accurate or fast?
- Accurate (the default) starts the clip on exactly the frame you chose. The clip is re-encoded with H.264 at high quality and the sound with AAC, so picture and sound start together. It takes about as long as encoding the clip; clips of up to about 25 minutes of 1080p work in one go.
- Fast copies the video and sound without re-encoding. The quality is untouched and it takes seconds, but the clip starts at the keyframe at or before your start time, which can be a few seconds early. Good for shortening long recordings.
Tips
- To find the times, play the video in any player and note the position where the part begins and ends.
- Upright phone videos stay upright: Fast keeps the rotation flag, Accurate turns the picture itself.
- An MP4 with several sound tracks keeps all of them; Fast also keeps subtitles.
- To cut a video into several parts, trim it once for each part.
More about what this tool reads and writes: Video Trimmer.