How to Trim a Video for YouTube

The fastest way to trim a video for YouTube depends on whether it's already uploaded. If it is, YouTube Studio's Trim & cut tool shortens it in place with no re-upload. If it isn't, trim it before it goes up, where you still have an undo button.

Open the free Video Trimmer →

Trim a video for YouTube inside Studio

Open Content, click the video, then Editor in the left menu, then Trim & cut. A blue box appears over the timeline: drag its sides until it covers only the part you want to keep. Preview plays back the result, and Save commits it.

Two limits are worth knowing before you start. The tool only works on videos shorter than six hours. And since June 2025, Revert to original no longer undoes changes once they've been saved, so a trim you regret is a re-upload, which costs you the URL, the view count and the comments that the in-place edit was protecting.

Pulling a Short out of a long video

There's a second kind of trimming that doesn't touch the original at all. On the watch page of a public video you uploaded, Remix → Edit into a Short opens the Shorts creation flow and lets you select up to 60 seconds of it. The resulting Short is linked back to the source video, which is the point. It's a trailer, not a replacement.

One restriction catches people out: you can't use music or other sounds from the Audio Library on a Short you create from your own video.

Trimming on a timeline, before the upload

Trimming in Studio is a repair. Trimming while you're editing is a decision, and it works better when you can take it back.

Montaj gives you a real timeline for that — trim a clip, move the cut, trim it again, reorder what's left, with 100 steps of undo behind you. Everything happens on your device, so the footage isn't uploaded anywhere while you're still deciding what it should be. Get the cut right there, and you'll rarely need to trim a video for YouTube after the fact.