A lossless cut for MP4 and MOV
This tool does exactly one thing: take a video, give it a start and end time, and hand back the section in between. It uses FFmpeg's stream-copy mode (-c copy), which means the original video and audio bytes are copied straight into the new file without being decoded and re-encoded. The upside is huge — the cut finishes in a second or two even on a long file, and there is zero generation loss, so the output looks pixel-for-pixel identical to the source. If you have ever watched a "trimmed" clip come out softer than the original, that was a re-encode. This one does not do that.
Why your cut may land a moment off — keyframe snapping
There is one honest trade-off with stream-copy, and it is worth understanding. Video is compressed so that most frames only store the difference from a nearby full frame called a keyframe (or I-frame). Because copying does not re-encode, the cut can only begin on a keyframe — so the actual start may snap a fraction of a second, sometimes a couple of seconds, earlier than the exact time you typed. The picture is still perfect; the edge just isn't frame-accurate. For most screen recordings, demos, and social clips that is invisible. If you need the cut to land on an exact frame — say you are clipping right up to the instant something appears on screen — you need a re-encode, which we cover next.
When to re-encode instead
Reach for a frame-accurate (re-encoding) cut in two situations: the start of your clip must hit a precise moment, or the keyframe interval in your source is very wide and the snap is pushing the cut too far. A re-encode re-draws every frame so the boundary can be exact, at the cost of a slower export and a tiny, usually unnoticeable quality dip. This page is deliberately the fast, lossless path. If you want to grab several different sections from one recording in a single pass, use our multi-range trim tool instead — this cutter is built for the simple single-section case.
Stop cutting — record the segment you need
Cutting is a fix for a recording that captured too much. The cleaner move is to record exactly the segment you mean to share in the first place. That is what Clipy is for: a free screen recorder with no watermark and no signup wall, so you press record, walk through the one thing, press stop, and get a hosted link with an inline preview — no trimming step at all. Keep this cutter for the times a raw file lands in your lap and you just need the good 20 seconds out of it.