Free Video Tools
Trim, extract audio from, and mute video files entirely in your browser — no account, no upload, and no file-size limit. Trimming and audio extraction don't re-encode anything: they copy the original video/audio data straight into a new file, the same "smart cut" technique professional editors use, so a multi-gigabyte file finishes in seconds instead of minutes.
This is the one thing free server-based video tools structurally can't offer — accepting a multi-gigabyte upload and paying the CPU cost to re-encode it is expensive to host for free. Doing the same work locally, without uploading or re-encoding, costs nothing and has no size ceiling beyond your own device's memory.
There's also a waveform-based Audio Trim for standalone MP3/WAV/OGG/M4A files — a different tool from the lossless video ones, since a standalone audio cutter needs to decode and re-encode by nature. See the FAQ below for which one to use.
How lossless video trimming actually works
A compressed video file is really two things stacked together: the encoded picture and sound data (the bulk of the file), and a small index describing which bytes belong to which frame and when each one plays (its container). Trim Video and Extract Audio only ever touch the index — they read just enough of it to find the exact byte range covering the time range you asked for, then copy those bytes verbatim into a freshly built index for the new, smaller file. The actual picture and audio data is never decoded, decompressed, or re-encoded, which is exactly why there's no quality loss and no waiting.
The one real constraint this technique has is keyframes. Most video frames are encoded as a difference from the frame before them, so a cut can only start cleanly at a frame that stands on its own (a keyframe) — starting mid-chain would show a broken or frozen image until the next keyframe arrives. Trim Video's timeline marks every keyframe and snaps your in-point to the nearest one at or before your selection, so what you get is always a clean cut, never a glitch.
FAQ
- Why is trimming a 2GB video instant here, when other tools take minutes?
- Because nothing gets re-encoded. Trim Video and Extract Audio copy the original compressed video/audio bytes straight through into a new container — the same technique professional editing software calls a 'lossless' or 'smart' cut. Server-based tools that accept multi-gigabyte uploads either can't (size caps) or spend CPU time decoding and re-encoding every frame, which is what actually takes minutes.
- Why does the trimmed clip sometimes start a fraction of a second before or after what I dragged the slider to?
- Video is stored as a chain of frames where most frames only make sense relative to the last full frame (a keyframe) before them — cutting mid-chain without re-encoding would produce a broken, glitchy start. So the actual cut point snaps to the nearest keyframe at or before your selection. The timeline shows exactly where the keyframes are so this is never a surprise.
- Is my video uploaded anywhere?
- No. Every tool on this page reads the file directly from your device using the File System Access APIs already built into your browser — only the small header/metadata region and the exact byte range you asked to keep are ever touched, and none of it leaves your machine.
- What video formats are supported?
- MP4, M4V and MOV — including ProRes MOV, since trimming and audio extraction never decode the video itself, only the container around it. WebM and MKV (Matroska) use a completely different container format and aren't supported yet.
- Is Audio Trim the same lossless technique as Trim Video?
- No, and that's intentional. Audio Trim works on standalone audio files (MP3, WAV, OGG, M4A) and shows a waveform for precise, sample-accurate selection — it decodes and re-encodes, the same as any audio editor's export. Extract Audio from Video is the lossless one: it copies a video's existing audio track without touching it. Use Extract Audio from Video when you just want a video's audio as-is; use Audio Trim when you need to cut a standalone audio file.