Trim and cut a video on your Mac
By Himanshu Ranjan · Updated 8 November 2026
To trim a video on your Mac, select it in Finder, hold the right Option (⌥) key and choose Edit › Trim… FileDial saves the trimmed clip as a new copy beside the original. To cut a long video into two parts, choose Cut › Split in half; to shorten playback time, choose Cut › Speed up 2×. Nothing is uploaded.
How to do it with FileDial
- Select the video in Finder.
- Hold right ⌥ to open the dial.
- Choose Edit › Trim… and set the part to keep, or choose Cut › Split in half or Cut › Speed up 2×.
- Check the new copy beside the original, and use Undo if you want another go.
Your original file stays untouched. The result is saved beside it, and every result has Undo.
Which option to pick
| Tool | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Trim…Edit | You want to keep one stretch of the video and drop the rest, for example dead air at the start and end. |
| Split in halfCut | A video is too long or too large to send as one, and two parts would do. Makes two new copies. |
| Speed up 2×Cut | You want the whole video to play in half the time, such as a long screen recording or timelapse-style clip. |
Trim first: the easiest way to a smaller, better video
Length is the biggest driver of a video's file size, so cutting the parts nobody needs is the most effective edit you can make. A trimmed clip is quicker to send, quicker to watch and keeps more detail if you compress it afterwards, because the same size budget is spread across fewer seconds.
Choose the tool by what you want to keep. Trim… is for keeping one continuous section. Split in half is for when you need all of the content, just in two pieces, which helps with upload or attachment limits. Speed up 2× keeps everything but halves the running time, which suits screen recordings, walkthroughs and footage where the motion matters more than the pace.
Order matters when you chain tools. Trim before you compress, convert to GIF or add captions, so each later step only processes the part you'll actually use.
- Remove the start and end: Trim…
- Two smaller parts of a long video: Split in half.
- Same content, half the time: Speed up 2×.
Why not trim a video online
To trim a video online you first upload all of it, even if you only want to keep ten seconds. That is slow for large files and leaves your full, uncut footage on a server you don't control.
Free converter sites carry a further risk. The FBI Denver Field Office warned on 7 March 2025 that free online document converter tools are increasingly used to spread malware: conversions work, but the files returned can carry malware leading to ransomware, and the sites can scrape personal data such as identity numbers, banking and crypto details, emails and passwords. That warning addressed document converters, and online video editors follow the same upload-and-download pattern.
FileDial trims on your Mac, works offline and never uploads the file.
Other ways to trim a video on a Mac
QuickTime Player trims well for free: open the video, choose Edit › Trim, drag the yellow handles to the part you want and click Trim, then save or export the result. The Photos app can also trim videos in your library, and iMovie handles more involved cuts with a timeline.
FileDial is handy when you want to work straight from Finder, keep the original untouched automatically, split a video into two parts in one step, speed up a recording without opening an editor, or run the same cut tool on a batch of videos with Undo on every result.
Questions
Does trimming overwrite my video?
No. Trim…, Split in half and Speed up 2× each save new copies beside the original, which stays as it was. Every result has Undo.
What does Split in half produce?
Two new copies beside the original, one for each half of the video. It's useful when a long video is too big to send or upload as a single file.
How do I make a trimmed video small enough to send?
Trim it first, then select the new copy and choose a compress option, such as Compress › Compress under 25 MB for email. You can also save the two steps as a recipe to reuse.
Is anything uploaded while trimming?
No. All FileDial tools run on your Mac and work with Wi‑Fi off. Your footage is never uploaded, even when you split it or speed it up, and the new copies are saved beside the original.
What do I need to run FileDial?
An Apple silicon Mac (M1 or newer) with macOS 14 Sonoma or later. The 1-day trial includes every tool with no card or account; then it's $20 once, for 2 Macs, with a 14-day refund.