How To Cut Out and Save a Portion Of a Video

You can use QuickTime Player to select a portion of a long video and save only that portion to a smaller file. This comes in handy when you want to only use a small section of a video in iMovie or Final Cut Pro.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to export a portion of a larger video as a separate file on your Mac. 
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So let's say you have a long video. Now if you want to use that in an iMovie or Final Cut Pro project the problem is bringing in that large video makes the project huge. But if all you want is a small clip from that large video it pays to export that clip first to a separate file and then just use that small clip in the project. Now if you try to do this using iMovie or Final Cut Pro it kind of defeats the purpose. You have to create this big project just to export this small clip. But you can do it using the simple Quick Time Player that's on your Mac. This will allow you to open the video, export just a portion of it without ever creating some big other project or file in between.
As an example let's take this ten minute video here, which is an old film. Let's say we just want a portion of this. So, in Quick Time Player there's some editing tools. There are two ways to approach this. First let's just use trim. I'll go to Edit and then Trim, or Command T. This brings up this special interface here at the bottom. Now I can select just the part that I want. When I get to that one part I can click Trim. Now I can go to File, Save. It's not going to save over the existing video but instead ask to save something new. So I can call this Clip 1 and save it to the Desktop. Notice how fast it does that. It's not exporting the video. It's actually just taking that clip and putting it in a separate file. So it's not reprocessing everything. So now I've got these two files here. This first one is 238 MB and you could see it is almost ten minutes long. This small clip that I exported, this one is only 17 MB and it's just 38 seconds long. So now I can bring this small clip into the iMovie project and keep the iMovie project relatively tight without bringing in this huge 200 MB file. 
In many cases it could be a lot worse than that. Shooting a long 4K video on your iPhone can give you a file that is several gigabytes in size. If you just want a portion of that you can use this technique to have a small file. Bring that into iMovie instead of increasing your iMovie project size by those several gigabytes. 
Now when you exported the clip and maybe you want to export another clip all you need to do is use Undo. Just Command Z. Then you're back to the original video. Then you can do Command T again and trim to export another section. Another thing I want to point out is if you want precision, notice how you don't get too much precision here because the entire video is in this really short timeline here. But if you have a trackpad and you click and then you force click, just click even harder, it actually zooms in and now you have great precision over exactly where to put the Start or the End of the trim. 
Now there's another method you could use as well that might work better in some situations. Instead of going to Trim use the Split Clip Function. So first let's go somewhere in the middle here. It might be easier to navigate around, play the video, and get exactly where you want to start. Although if you're going to be using this in another editor, like iMovie or Final Cut, it pays to get a little bit extra at the beginning and at the end especially if you're not sure the exact parts of the clip that you want or you might want to add transitions. So you go a little bit before. But let's say I want to start here. I could do Edit and then Split Clip or simply Command Y. This goes into a very similar looking interface here. But you can see the two parts. Now you don't have to stop here before you export. You can grab this red line and drag it somewhere else and do a split right there. Continue to do it and breakout just the parts that you need. Maybe some of these pieces you need. Like maybe I need this one. I don't need this but I do need this. Now you can go in and Delete the parts that you don't want. So I'm going to use the Command key to select all the part that I don't want. Leave that part. Then I'm going to hit Delete. Now I just have this portion here. Now I can go and Save and let's call this Clip 2. You can see it appear here. Now I simple Undo and it brings all those parts back. So now I could use the Command key and click Reselect That Part, Deselect This Part, Delete. Now I just have that section. Now I can Save and call this Clip 3. Then once again Undo.
Now whether you're using the Trim method or you're using this method you can simply close this. The original is not going to change. If I go back to the original now you could see it's still ten minutes long. It doesn't have those sections at all. If I go into Split again or Trim again you could see it's kind of starting fresh there. So this isn't going to effect the original. But if you go to close this it will ask you if you want to Save this. But you see it says Export As. So, no, of course, you don't want to save what's left over here. Just press Delete and you have your original video right there. Then you have your small clips right here ready to use in your editing software without having to ever bring in this big heavy long video. 
That's just a sample of what you can do using the editing tools of Quick Time Player. It's ideal for doing things like trimming video, exporting clips like this, or even rearranging clips inside of the video. You can do that easily without ever having to use iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or something else.
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 4 Responses to “How To Cut Out and Save a Portion Of a Video”

Ken

3 years ago

I have trimmed video using this method before and then imported trimmed clips into FCP. Is it worth it (storage) to pre edit my video clips this way and then import them into FCP. It took a little longer than just importing the entire clip and editing in FCP. Thanks again for a great tutorial. Ken

Jonathan Liss

Wow, I learned something new yet again !!!
I have Final Cut Pro and have labored the way you said not to any more. Who knew ?
I just downloaded the free DaVinci resolve, do you have any experience with it? compared to FCP ?
Thanks - Jonathan

Gary Rosenzweig

Jonathan: I haven't used DaVinvi Resolve, but as I understand it, the free version is a little more capable in some areas than iMovie, but far from Final Cut Pro.

Bob

Hi, Actually Da Vinci Resolve in its free version is still more powerful than Final Cut for color grading. Some stuff is missing (like noise reduction and some AI assisted masking) but there's probably 95% of what's needed for a non-professional. In my personal experience I've found it ten times more intuitive and pleasant to use than FC.
It is more power hungry than FC though, because it's not Apple's baby so less well integrated, and also because it's more powerful (consider Fusion)

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How To Cut Out and Save a Portion Of a Video

Comments: 4 Responses to “How To Cut Out and Save a Portion Of a Video”

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