Audio trimmer

Cut an MP3 or any audio file to the part you need, with no quality lost.

Drop an audio file here

or choose one from your device

MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG, FLAC, or a video’s sound, up to 8.0 GB.

How to trim an audio file

This audio trimmer cuts an MP3, M4A, WAV or other audio file to the part you need, in your browser. Choose the file, drag the handles on the waveform or type the times, then press Download and pick a format.

Choose a file
Choose or drop an MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG or FLAC, or a video. The waveform draws as the page reads it.
Select the part
Drag the two handles, or type the start and end to the millisecond. Zoom in for a precise cut. Choose Remove the selection to cut out the middle instead.
Listen
Press Play to hear what you will get, with a removed part skipped. After you move a handle, Play starts just before that cut, so you hear exactly where it falls.
Trim and download
Add a fade if you like, press Download and pick a format; each shows its rough size. The new file is made, opened again to check it, and downloaded.

How the trim is made

An MP3 is not one long stream of sound but a row of short frames, each 1,152 samples, about 26 milliseconds. An M4A’s AAC sound works the same way in blocks of 1,024 samples, and an OGG’s Opus in frames of usually 20 milliseconds. When you save in the original’s format with no fade, this page copies the frames you selected into a new file without decoding them. Nothing is re-encoded, so the sound is bit for bit the original, and even an hour-long file is done in seconds.

The catch is that a copy can only cut between two frames. Each cut moves to the nearest frame boundary, usually within about 13 milliseconds of where you put it, and the result tells you where it landed. That is far too short to hear in speech or music.

A fade, or saving as another format, needs the actual sound. Then the page decodes it, cuts exactly at the sample you chose, fades it, and encodes the result: MP3 or M4A at 192 kbps for stereo (128 kbps for mono), or WAV. Where two parts are joined after cutting out the middle, each side gets a 10-millisecond fade so the join does not click. A WAV or FLAC saved as WAV loses nothing either way, because WAV is not compressed.

Copy: whole frames, unchanged

Re-encode: cut to the sample, with fades

What each choice gives you

We trimmed the same three-minute stereo MP3 (44.1 kHz, 128 kbps) to one minute in Chrome on a Mac, once for each choice. The copy is the fastest and the smallest, and it is the original sound. Re-encoding a minute took well under a second. A WAV is about ten times the size of an MP3, so choose it only for an audio editor that wants it.

Long recordings are fine too. On a one-hour M4A, the waveform finished drawing in about2 seconds. Cutting out the 40 minutes in the middle took0.3 seconds as a copy, and about 11 seconds saved as MP3.

Time, size and precision of a one-minute trim from a 3:00 MP3, by choice
Save as	Time	Size	Cut
MP3, same as the original (copied)	Under 0.1 s	938 KB	Nearest frame, 11 ms at most
MP3, with a 2-second fade out	0.4 s	1.4 MB	To the sample
M4A	0.3 s	1.1 MB	To the sample
WAV	0.2 s	10.1 MB	To the sample

Getting a clean cut

Cut in a gap. Zoom in until you can see the quiet between two words or notes, and put the handle there. A cut in the middle of a word sounds like a glitch however exact it is.
Use a short fade for music. Half a second to two seconds at the end of a song clip or a ringtone stops it ending with a jump.
Listen to the join. When removing a part, Play starts 3 seconds before the cut and skips what is removed, so you hear the join the way a listener will.
Keep the original. The page never changes your file; it makes a new one ending in “-trimmed”.
Long recordings. A meeting or lecture recording can be hours long. The waveform draws as it reads, and you can start selecting before it finishes.

Need the sound out of a video first? Extract the audio. To change the format without cutting, use the MP4 to MP3 converter or M4A to MP3. To record a new take, use the online voice recorder, and to cut a video, the video trimmer. Narrating a screen recording on a Mac? The guide to recording your screen with audio covers the microphone setup.

Other ways to trim audio

Most computers and phones can already cut audio. These are free:

Audacity (Windows, Mac and Linux)

Open the file with File › Open.
Drag across the part you want to keep, then choose Edit › Remove Special › Trim Audio. To cut a part out instead, select it and press Delete.
Use File › Export Audio to save it as MP3, WAV or another format.

Free and far more capable: several tracks, effects and noise removal. It re-encodes an MP3 when you export it.

QuickTime Player (Mac)

Open the audio or video file in QuickTime Player.
Choose Edit › Trim and drag the yellow handles around the part to keep.
Click Trim, then File › Save or File › Export As.

Built in. It keeps only one part, and saves as M4A or a movie rather than MP3.

Voice Memos (iPhone and Mac)

Open the recording and choose Edit Recording (on a Mac, Edit).
Drag the yellow handles, then tap Trim to keep the part between them or Delete to remove it.
Tap Save, then Done.

Quickest for a recording made in Voice Memos. It works on its own recordings only.

FFmpeg (Any computer, from the command line)

Install FFmpeg from ffmpeg.org.
Run the command below, with your own times. -c copy keeps the sound as it is, like this page’s copy option.

ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -ss 0:12 -to 0:45 -c copy output.mp3

Fast and scriptable for many files, but there is no waveform to see where to cut.

This page needs nothing installed, shows the waveform, cuts out the middle as well as the ends, and keeps an MP3 as it was.

Limitations

Files up to 8.0 GB can be opened. The new file is held in memory until you download it, so it can be up to 1.0 GB; a WAV of a long recording can hit that, and the page says so before it starts.
One selection at a time: keep it, or remove it. To cut several parts out, trim once, then open the result and trim again.
A copy cuts at the nearest frame. For an exact cut, add a fade or save as WAV. A copied MP3 may have a very short glitch at the first frame, because MP3 frames can borrow data from the frame before.
FLAC is saved as WAV, MP3 or M4A, not as FLAC. Opus and Vorbis can be copied, but not re-encoded as themselves: a fade saves them as MP3, M4A or WAV.
Only the first sound track of a file is kept, with no cover art or chapters. A video’s picture is left out.
The waveform and any re-encode need the browser to decode the sound. Where it cannot, as with some formats in older browsers, the page says so and still offers a copy.
Tested in Chrome on a Mac and with Safari’s browser engine, with MP3, M4A, OGG, WAV, FLAC and MP4 files. Safari’s engine cannot decode FLAC, so open a FLAC in Chrome or Edge. Edge, Firefox, Windows and real phones have not been tested on this page yet.

Sources

An MP3 is a run of frames of 1,152 samples each, about 26 milliseconds at 44.1 kHz. A cut that keeps the sound as it is has to fall between two frames. Source, checked 9 November 2026.
AAC, the sound in an M4A, codes blocks of 1,024 samples (or 960), about 23 milliseconds at 44.1 kHz. Source, checked 9 November 2026.
Opus, the usual sound in an OGG or WebM voice recording, codes frames of 2.5 to 60 milliseconds, most often 20. Source, checked 9 November 2026.
In Audacity, Edit › Remove Special › Trim Audio (Ctrl+T) removes everything in a clip except the selected part. Source, checked 9 November 2026.
QuickTime Player on a Mac trims with Edit › Trim: drag the yellow handles, and the part outside them is removed. Source, checked 9 November 2026.

Frequently asked questions

More audio tools: extract the audio from a video, remove background noise, or record a new take with the online voice recorder.

How do I trim an MP3 online?

Choose the MP3 above, or drop it on the page. Drag the two handles on the waveform, or type the start and end times, and press Play to check. Press Download and pick the first line, MP3. The new file downloads in a second or two.

Does trimming an MP3 lose quality?

Not here, if you save it as MP3 with no fade. The page copies the original frames without decoding them, so the sound is bit for bit the same. A fade, or another format, means re-encoding, which changes the sound very slightly at 192 kbps.

How do I cut out a part in the middle?

Choose Remove the selection, then put the handles around the part you do not want. Press Play: it starts a few seconds before the join and skips the removed part, so you can hear how it sounds before you save.

Can I add a fade in or fade out?

Yes. Tick Fade in or Fade out and choose how long, from half a second to five seconds. A fade changes the sound, so the file is re-encoded rather than copied.

Which formats can I trim?

MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, OGG, Opus and FLAC, and the sound of a video such as an MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV. You can save as the original’s format (MP3, M4A, OGG or WAV), or as MP3, M4A or WAV.

Is my file uploaded?

No. The page reads the file in your browser and makes the new one there. The only things sent are anonymous usage events, such as that a trim finished and its format, never the sound or the file name.

How exact are the cuts?

A re-encoded file is cut to the sample you chose: you can type times to the millisecond. A copied file can only be cut between two frames of compressed sound, so each cut moves to the nearest one, usually within about 13 milliseconds, and the page shows where it landed.

How do I make a ringtone from a song?

Keep the 20 to 30 seconds you want, add a short fade out, and save it. Android takes an MP3. An iPhone needs the M4A renamed to .m4r and added in GarageBand or Finder, so save as M4A here.

Can I trim the audio from a video?

Yes, choose the video file. The page keeps its sound only and saves it as M4A (copied, when the video has AAC sound), MP3 or WAV. To cut the video itself, use the video trimmer.

Is there a size or length limit?

Files up to 8 GB can be opened, because the page reads them a piece at a time. The new file is held in memory until you download it, so it can be up to 1 GB. That is about 1 hour 40 minutes of stereo WAV, and far longer as MP3.

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