How to Trim a Video on Windows 11

You recorded a clip on your PC or phone and only need the middle part, without installing a video editor. On Windows 11, open the video in the Photos app, select Trim (Ctrl+E), drag the start and end sliders, then choose Save as Copy. To cut a section out of the middle instead, use Microsoft Clipchamp’s Split tool.

Pick the Right Built-In Tool

Trimming means shortening a clip by removing time from the beginning, the end, or both. It is different from cropping, which cuts the edges off the picture but keeps the full length. Windows 11 gives you two Microsoft tools for trimming, and the right one depends on what you want to remove.

What you want	Use	Why
Keep one continuous stretch of the clip (drop the start and end)	Photos	Fastest route: one Trim view, two sliders, save
Remove a section from the middle, or keep two separate parts	Clipchamp	Split the clip, delete the unwanted piece, close the gap
Choose the export resolution (480p to 4K)	Clipchamp	Microsoft’s Photos trim steps have no resolution setting, only Save as Copy
Shorten a screen recording you just made	Snipping Tool, then Clipchamp	Snipping Tool hands the recording to Clipchamp for editing

Here’s a worked example used below: Priya has a 4 minute 10 second phone video of her son’s piano recital called recital.mp4. The piece he played runs from 0:52 to 3:05. Everything before is people finding their seats, and everything after is applause.

Trim the Start and End in Photos

If the video is on your phone, copy it to the PC first (a USB cable, OneDrive or a shared folder all work), and note where it lands. The steps below follow Microsoft’s instructions for editing videos in Photos.

1. Open File Explorer and find the video. If you can’t tell which file is the video, turn on file extensions so you can see the .mp4 or .mov ending.
2. Right-click the video, choose Open with, and pick Photos. A plain double-click may open the video in a different player, so use Open with to be sure. You can also search for Photos from Start and open the video from inside the app.
3. Select Trim at the top of the window, or press Ctrl+E. A timeline with two sliders appears along the bottom.
4. Drag the left slider to where you want the video to start and the right slider to where you want it to end. Play the selection to check the first and last second. In Priya’s case, the left slider goes just before 0:52 and the right slider just after 3:05.
5. Select Save as Copy. Photos writes the trimmed part to a new file and leaves the original untouched.

Before you save: the dropdown arrow beside Save as Copy holds an option that saves over the original video. Once the original is overwritten, the trimmed-off footage is gone from that file. Stick with Save as Copy unless you have another copy of the full clip somewhere, such as on your phone or in a cloud backup.

Leave a half second of padding at each end. Sliders are easier to place roughly than exactly, and a few extra frames are better than clipping the first note of a song or the first word of a sentence.

Cut Out the Middle or Fine-Tune in Clipchamp

Photos keeps one continuous section. When you need to remove a piece in the middle (a phone call that interrupted a tutorial, or a stretch where the camera pointed at the floor), use Microsoft Clipchamp. You can jump to it from Photos with the Edit in Clipchamp video editor option on an open video, or open Clipchamp from Start. Clipchamp comes preinstalled on Windows 11; if you can’t find it, install Microsoft Clipchamp from the Microsoft Store. The first time you open it, sign in with a personal Microsoft account, or with a work or school account on a managed PC.

Shorten the ends first:

1. Select Create a new video.
2. Drag the video into My media, or use the import media button and pick the file.
3. Add the clip to the timeline with the green + button, or drag it down onto the timeline.
4. Click the clip on the timeline to select it. Handles appear at both ends.
5. Drag the left handle right to remove footage from the start, and drag the right handle left to remove footage from the end. If you trim too far, drag the handle back out; the footage isn’t deleted from the source file.

Then remove a section from the middle:

1. Move the seeker (the vertical playhead line) to where the unwanted part begins, then select the split button on the editing toolbar.
2. Move the seeker to where the unwanted part ends and split again. The clip is now three pieces.
3. Select the middle piece and delete it.
4. Close the empty space it leaves: right-click the gap and choose delete all visual gaps, or use the trash can icon that appears on the gap. If you skip this, the exported video shows a stretch of blank screen.

For cuts that need to land on an exact moment, use the zoom plus and minus buttons at the right end of the timeline. Zooming in spreads each second across more of the screen, so the handles and the seeker move in smaller steps. To trim several clips at once, hold Shift, select them, and drag their handles together. Microsoft’s page on trimming clips in Clipchamp covers these controls, including trimming audio tracks and images.

Export the Trimmed Video From Clipchamp

Nothing is saved as a video file until you export. Select the export button at the top right corner of the editor and choose a video quality. Microsoft lists four resolutions in its export resolution guide:

• 480p: small files for quick sharing where sharpness doesn’t matter.
• 720p: a middle ground for messaging apps and email.
• 1080p: the largest free resolution, and the sensible pick for most phone and screen recordings.
• 4K: available to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers and Clipchamp premium plan subscribers. It only helps if the original was recorded in 4K.

You can save the export to your computer, or with a personal account send it to a connected service such as OneDrive or Google Drive. Pick a resolution no higher than your source: exporting a 1080p phone clip at 4K makes a bigger file without adding detail.

Trim a Screen Recording From Snipping Tool

Screen recordings usually start with a few seconds of you reaching for the window and end with you reaching for the Stop button. Snipping Tool itself doesn’t have a trim control in Microsoft’s documentation, but it sends the recording to Clipchamp:

1. Press Windows key+Shift+R, or open Snipping Tool and choose Record, then New.
2. Drag to select the area of the screen, select Start, and select Stop when you’re done.
3. When the recording finishes, save it as is or choose Edit in Clipchamp, then trim the clip with the handles as described above and export it.

Recordings are saved as MP4 files in Videos > Screen Recordings by default, so you can also come back later and open one in Photos for a quick start and end trim. For other recording options, including Game Bar, see how to screen record in Windows 11, and for screenshots and annotation tools, see this Snipping Tool walkthrough.

When Trimming Doesn’t Go as Planned

• The Trim button isn’t there. Make sure the file opened in Photos and not in another player. Right-click the file and use Open with > Photos, then look at the top of the window. Updating Photos from the Microsoft Store is worth a try if the controls still look different.
• You can’t find the saved copy. Note the folder and file name Photos shows when it saves. If you missed it, open the original’s folder in File Explorer and sort by Date modified, or search for the video’s name.
• The Clipchamp export has a black section. A gap was left on the timeline after you deleted a piece. Right-click the gap, choose delete all visual gaps, and export again.
• You cut off too much in Clipchamp. Select the clip and drag its handle back out. As long as you haven’t removed the clip from the project, the footage is still there.
• The trimmed copy looks softer than the original. Microsoft doesn’t document the quality settings Photos uses for the copy. Compare it with the original before you delete anything, and if you need control, export from Clipchamp at the resolution that matches your source.

Trimming Limits and Odd Cases

Does trimming in Photos change my original file?

Not if you choose Save as Copy, which creates a new file. Only the overwrite option in the dropdown beside it replaces the original. Clipchamp edits a project and writes a new video file when you export. Microsoft still advises keeping your source files, because the project depends on them.

Can I keep two separate parts of one video?

Yes. Either trim the video twice in Photos, saving a copy each time with different slider positions, or split the clip in Clipchamp and export each part on its own. Running Photos twice gives you two files; Clipchamp lets you join the parts into one video instead if you prefer.

Can I crop the picture while I’m trimming?

Trimming only changes the length. To cut off the edges of the frame, for example a taskbar showing in a screen recording, select the clip on the Clipchamp timeline and use the crop option in the floating toolbar, then export once with both changes.

Should I trim on my phone instead?

If the clip is still on your phone and you only need a start and end trim, the phone’s own photo app is often quicker, and you avoid copying a large file you’ll trim anyway. Move it to the PC when you need a middle cut or a specific export resolution.

Once your trimmed copy plays the way you want, keep the original until you’ve shared or backed up the new file, then decide whether the full-length version is worth the storage space.