Easily Trimming Video Files With QuickTime Player

If you want to trim some video from the beginning or end of a movie file, you don't need to use a video editing app. You can do it right in QuickTime Player. Trimming is lossless and can be done with precision. You can also cut sections out of the middle of your video and export a new copy. You can trim in the Photos app as well, though the original full-length video is always available if you wish to revert.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can use QuickTime Player to trim your videos.
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So if you've taken some videos and you want to trim a little off the beginning or the end or take out a section in the middle you can do that using the QuickTime Player. You don't have to go to a full fledged editing app like iMovie. So QuickTime Player should be the default app whenever you double click a video file on your Mac. Now it appears that really all you can do here is play the video. It is called QuickTime Player after all. But there are some editing features as well.
If you go to Edit, Trim you can enter a mode where you can trim video. Command T is the keyboard shortcut for this. When you go into this mode you see this strip here at the bottom with the yellow box surrounding it. You can click and drag the ends to trim off some from the beginning and the end. When you've got it just where you want it you can hit the Trim button and the beginning and the end will be gone and you just have this section in the middle. If your video is long dragging here is going to move pretty quickly and it's going to be hard to figure out exactly where you want to cut the video.
But if you click and hold and wait a second you can see that the area at the bottom expands and now you have finer control over this location. As soon as you release it snaps back. You can do the same thing with the beginning here. Click and hold and now you have finer control. When you hit Trim you're left with just the section in the middle. The section that was in the yellow box. 
Now one of the down sides of using QuickTime Player for anything is the Export options are very limited. You can only export as a standard video format. So you can't set specific export options and compression options. However when you trim like this and then you go to Save you'll be saving it using the exact same settings as the current video. In other words it's going to be lostless. It's just going to cut some off the beginning and the end but it's not going to change the format or compression or anything of the section that you keep. 
Undo works really well with this. Even though I've trimmed some if I hit Undo you can see I can go back to the full length of the video there. 
What if you don't want to trim some off of the beginning or the end but you want to take a section out of the middle. You could do that as well. In the normal playback mode here there's an option for Split Clip which is Command Y. So position the playback head where you want to make the first cut. Then you can use Split Clip, or Command Y. Now you go into this mode that's kind of like trimming. You've got this strip at the bottom and you can see the cut there. You also have a red line that you can click and drag to reposition where the next cut will be. So I'm going to make another cut right here and I'll do Command Y to make that cut. 
Now you can see I've got three sections. You can use these sections to actually move things around. So I can actually reorder the video like that. Or I can select the middle section and then hit Delete and it gets rid of it. So now I hit Done and you can see now I've got a total of 18 seconds of video where before there were 26. That middle section is now missing. You can use Undo on this as well to get back to the original 26 seconds. Actually those Split Clips are still there so you can continue to use Undo to get rid of those. Now you're back to the original video. 
When you do something like this, when you split a clip and then you remove a section from it, you loose the ability to save it. So you can't save it like you can with trimming. You have to then Export using one of the standard video formats which may not be a problem if you're already using a 1080p video and then exporting as 1080p video isn't going to be that much of a difference. 
So there's a lot you can do here in QuickTIme Player.  As a matter of fact not only can you trim and take out a middle section of a video but you can also insert other clips from other videos. So you can merge videos as well. 
I should add that you can also trim videos in the Photos app. So if you keep your videos in there you can go to a video and then you can hit the Edit button and then there's a little Settings button there with Trim as an option. If you go into that you're in the same Trim mode here. You can move the front and back. You can click and hold for more accurate precision there. Then you could hit Trim and it will trim the video. Then you hit Done. Now you have that trimmed video in your Photos library. You can also get it back by going to Edit and like everything else in Photos you can Revert to Original. So when you do that you'll end up back here with the video of the original length. So you're not permanently changing the video in Photos. You're just trimming it so now you're viewing a smaller section and also when you Export or Share you'll only be exporting or sharing that section.

Comments: 14 Responses to “Easily Trimming Video Files With QuickTime Player”

rusty

5 years ago

In Quicktime, after you edit a video clip, click on the red close button in the upper left corner (not something you would normally do if you want to save a video) and you will be presented with a dialogue box that allows you to save the file, even after you have split the video and removed a section. A bit counter intuitive, but the file will be saved in the original format.

cashxx

My problem is you trim it down, what if you have video within that trim you want to trim out and video at the beginning and end you want to keep? QT7 was perfect how it let you use the tick marks and quickly select beginning and ending spots by the frame and delete the video you didn't want and end with the video you wanted. QTX is the opposite and counter intuitive I think. I won't be upgraded to the new macOS in fear of loosing QT7 as I use it often to quickly edit small videos.

I guess the split clip allows it to be close and I actually think that was put in after my feedback when QTX was beta. Just seems so much more simple with QT7. Loosing the exporting options is bad as well, but QTX is keeping them in standard formats if using mp4.

Pete

Quick time player is nit in the App Store.

Gary Rosenzweig

Pete: It is part of macOS. You should have it already.

Sherry

So how do you place the other video clip inside the previous one?

Sherry: Do you mean like I do in my videos? I use pro-level software for that, to record both at the same time. Screenflow.

nick

hi Gary
any idea if you can add text in Quicktime? For example a simple on screen title. thx

nick: No, you can't do that in QuickTime Player. Use iMovie for that.

Right after I posted my question I remembered that Keynote allows export to a movie, so I created a slide, exported it as a movie and inserted it into the QT movie. The only thing is, QT allows a clip to be inserted at the end, after which you can manually move it to the beginning. Happy to report it worked great :)

Patrick Harrington

4 years ago

Hi, just followed the video, only thing is, when I go to trim, at the bottom, my whole video clip isn't there, just the first section... rest is blank, when it plays the first section, it goes to the next section, removing the last one... Just wanna be able to see the whole clip,to be able to trim it.. Thanks...PH

Patrick: Perhaps it is something about that one video. Did you try it with another video? Not sure why it would work this way for you.

Hanish

Whenever I trim a video and save or export it, I keep getting the trimmed section back. Is it me or what? I tried trimming a few videos by chopping the beginning, saved and also exported the vid. Hey ho they trimmed bit is still there. Any suggestions ?

Hanish: Not sure what you could be doing wrong, sorry. Just take it one step at a time carefully.

Comments Closed.

Easily Trimming Video Files With QuickTime Player

Comments: 14 Responses to “Easily Trimming Video Files With QuickTime Player”

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