Trim a video on your Mac.

In Finder, with Quick Look

Select the video in Finder and press the Space bar. In the Quick Look window, click the Trim button.

Drag the yellow handles in the trimming bar to set where the video starts and ends. Click Play to check it, or Revert to start over. When it’s right, click Done, then choose whether to replace the original file or make a new one.

In QuickTime Player

Open the video in QuickTime Player and choose Edit › Trim. Drag the yellow handles in the trimming bar; everything outside them is cut. Click and hold a handle to see the video frame by frame, for a more exact cut. Then click Trim.

To keep the trimmed video as a file, choose File › Export As and pick a resolution. QuickTime Player saves it as a QuickTime movie (.mov).

If the movie is made of several clips, choose View › Show Clips, double-click the clip you want to trim, drag its handles and click Trim.

In Photos

For a video in your library, double-click it in Photos, then click Edit in the toolbar. Click Adjust, then drag the trim handles at either end to shorten it.

Trimming in Photos doesn’t delete anything. To get the whole video back, click Revert to Original in the toolbar. That removes every change made to the video, not only the trim.

By dropping it on the notch, with Tilora

With Tilora, drag the video to the top of the screen and let go on Transform. Choose Trim, and the trimmed copy is saved beside the original, which stays as it was. It waits on the Shelf, ready to drag into a chat or an email. Make GIF is there too.

It all happens on your Mac; nothing is uploaded. More about the file shelf. Tilora is $9.99 once, for three Macs, and free for 7 days. It needs macOS 14 or later.

Questions