How to trim a video on a Mac, and cut out the middle too

How do you trim a video in QuickTime Player?

QuickTime Player is already on every Mac, and its Trim command is a simple video trimmer for a single clip. Apple's QuickTime Player guide gives the steps:

Open the video in QuickTime Player.
Choose Edit > Trim. A trimming bar with yellow handles appears under the picture.
Drag the yellow handles. Everything outside them is trimmed away. Click and hold a handle to see individual frames, so you can land on the exact one.
Click Trim, then save the result.

That is all a trim is: a new start and a new end. For a recording that runs on too long at either end, it is all you need.

Why won't QuickTime let me trim a video?

Usually because what you want is not a trim. QuickTime's Trim keeps one stretch between its two yellow handles, so it can shorten a video from either end but it cannot take out a part in the middle. Cutting out the middle needs two cuts and a join, and Trim makes no joins.

QuickTime can still do it, in a different way. Apple's guide describes it as splitting the movie into clips:

Choose View > Show Clips.
Move the playhead (the red line) to where the unwanted part starts, and choose Edit > Split Clip. Do the same where it ends.
Delete the clip between the two splits, or drag clips to rearrange them.
Click Done, then save.

It works, but every cut point is placed by eye on a small strip, with no way to hear the words around it. For more than one or two cuts, a video editor is quicker.

How do you trim a video in Photos on Mac?

For a video in your Photos library, trim it where it is. Apple's guides give the steps: double-click the video, click Edit, and drag the trim handles at either end of the timeline. Click Done and choose Save Video, or Save Video as New Clip to keep the full video beside the trimmed copy. Apple's Photos guide says trimming does not delete footage, so you can drag the handles back or choose Revert to Original later.

Photos has the same limit as QuickTime: it trims the ends, and cannot cut out the middle.

How do I cut part of a video clip?

Mark where the unwanted part starts and ends, cut at both points, remove the piece and close the gap. In Sharpy that is one gesture:

Add the video. Drop the recording on the window. Picture and sound arrive linked on the timeline.
Mark In and Out. Play to the start of the part you do not want and press I, then to its end and press O. The ruler shades the range, and each end has a bracket you can drag.
Extract it. Extract removes the range and closes up, so nothing is left behind. Lift removes it and leaves the gap, when you want to put something else there.
Listen to the join. Sharpy can play two seconds before the cut and one after, so you hear it the way a viewer will.

There are quicker ways for smaller jobs. On the Premiere keys, press Q or W to trim the time between the playhead and the edit before or after it. Press C for the razor and click to cut a clip in two, then select the piece and delete it. Click an empty gap on the timeline and press Delete to close it. Every one of these is a single step of undo.

	QuickTime Player	Photos	Sharpy
Trim the start and end	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cut out the middle	By splitting into clips	No	Mark In and Out, then Extract
Cut by the words said	No	No	Yes, in the words view
Crop the frame	No crop in its guide	Yes	Yes, by dragging in the viewer
Export just one part	Trim, then save	Save Video as New Clip	Only between In and Out
Export many parts at once	No	No	Export Each Marked Stretch

Hands at a sunny table hold a strip of 16 mm film cut into three pieces, the middle piece set aside and the two ends about to be joined. — Trimming is one cut at each end; taking out the middle is two cuts and a join.

Can you cut a video by what is said in it?

Yes, and for anything with talking it is the quickest way. Sharpy's words view lays out every word of the recording in the order it is heard. Select the words you do not want and press Delete: the picture and sound under them go together, and each cut is placed from the sound, so it lands between words rather than inside them. Cut words stay in the text, struck through, and right-click Put Back brings them back.

The review list beside the words finds the ums, repeated words, false starts and long pauses for you, each with its reason. How to edit video by editing text goes through the words view step by step, and how to remove filler words and dead air covers the clean-up pass.

How do you export just part of a video?

In QuickTime, trim to the part and save it. In Photos, trim and choose Save Video as New Clip. In Sharpy, mark In and Out and tick Only between In and Out in the export panel: only that stretch renders, and any captions written beside it are cut to match and timed from its first frame.

To get many clips out of one long recording, put a range marker over each moment and choose File ▸ Export Each Marked Stretch…. Every marker becomes its own file in one folder, named after the marker. How to log footage with markers and bins covers marking the moments.

Sharpy runs on your Mac with Apple silicon (M4 or later), 16 GB of memory and macOS 26 or later, and nothing is uploaded. It is coming soon, with one plan and unlimited edits: see pricing.

Frequently asked questions

Is it possible to crop a video in QuickTime?

No. Apple's QuickTime Player guide covers trimming, splitting, rearranging, rotating and flipping, but not cropping. Photos on Mac can crop or straighten a video, and in Sharpy you drag the edges of the picture in the viewer.

Does trimming a video lower its quality?

Trimming changes only where the video starts and ends. Quality depends on how the result is saved: in Sharpy you choose the codec and quality in the export panel, ProRes, H.264 or HEVC.

Can I trim a video without changing the original?

Yes. In Photos, choose Save Video as New Clip. In Sharpy, every cut is a decision in the edit, and Sharpy refuses to write over your original recordings.

How do I cut several parts out of one video?

Split it into clips in QuickTime and delete each unwanted one, or in Sharpy mark and Extract each part, or delete the words, which handles any number of cuts in one pass.

What is the best free video cutter on a Mac?

For one trim, QuickTime Player, which comes with every Mac. For cutting several parts out of a talk or interview, an editor that lets you cut by the words saves the most time.

Sources

Checked on 18 October 2026.