How to trim a screen recording on a Mac and cut a section out of the middle.
Trimming removes time from the start or the end. Cutting removes a section from the middle and joins what is left. QuickTime Player does both for free, and the second one is the part most guides get wrong. Here are the exact menu commands, a worked example with timestamps, and a faster route for recordings full of small pauses.
7-day trial · $49 once · no subscription · Apple Silicon · macOS 14+The short answer
To trim a screen recording on a Mac, open it in QuickTime Player, choose Edit > Trim (Command-T), drag the yellow handles and click Trim. To cut the middle, choose View > Show Clips, split with Edit > Split Clip (Command-Y) before and after the section, select the clip between the splits, delete it and click Done. Both are free. In Qreata the same cut is Split (S) twice and Delete, or deleting words in the transcript.
The recording workflow
Duplicate the file, then open the copy
Copy “Screen Recording [date] at [time].mov” in Finder and open the copy in QuickTime Player. Editing a copy keeps the full original for the day you cut too much.
Trim the start and the end
Choose Edit > Trim or press Command-T. Drag the left yellow handle to your first sentence and the right one to the last frame you want. Click and hold a handle to see individual frames. Click Trim.
Show the clips
Choose View > Show Clips. The movie appears as one clip along the bottom of the window with a red vertical playhead.
Split before and after the section
Move the playhead to where the unwanted section starts and choose Edit > Split Clip (Command-Y). Move it to where the section ends and split again. The left and right arrow keys move the playhead in small steps.
Delete the middle clip
Click the clip between the two splits so it gets a yellow outline, and delete it. The clips on either side now play back to back. Click Done.
Play across the join and save
Play from five seconds before the join. If the screen jumps, press Command-Z and move the split to a calmer frame. Then choose File > Save.
QuickTime Player cuts the middle too, not only the ends
A common claim is that QuickTime Player can only trim the beginning and end. It is wrong. Apple’s QuickTime Player User Guide has a page called “Split a movie into clips”, which says you can split a movie into as many clips as you like and then edit it by rearranging or deleting clips.
The confusion comes from the Trim command. Edit > Trim shows one trimming bar with two yellow handles, and that bar really does only shorten the ends. The cut in the middle lives in a different view, View > Show Clips, with a different command, Edit > Split Clip.
So the free route covers both jobs. What it lacks is speed: every cut is two splits and a delete, placed by eye on a small timeline.
Worked example: a 7-minute recording becomes 5:40
You recorded a seven-minute walkthrough of a reporting dashboard. Three parts have to go. The same ranges apply in QuickTime Player, iMovie or Qreata; only the commands differ.
Work from the end of the recording toward the start. A cut shifts everything after it, so if you remove the middle section first, the timestamp you wrote down for the ending is no longer correct.
| Range | What is in it | Operation | Time removed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6:45–7:00 | Reaching for the Stop button | Trim the end | 15 seconds |
| 3:30–4:15 | Wrong report opened, then back | Cut the middle: two splits, delete | 45 seconds |
| 0:00–0:20 | Arranging windows before speaking | Trim the start | 20 seconds |
| Result | Opens on the first sentence, no detour | Save as a new file | 1:20 removed, 5:40 left |
Where to place a cut so nobody sees it
A cut is visible when the picture or the sound changes abruptly across it. Four rules prevent most of that.
- Split on a still screen. If a menu is half open or a page is mid-scroll at the split, the join shows a jump.
- Split between sentences. A cut inside a word leaves a click or a clipped syllable.
- End the removed section on a screen that matches where it started, or on one the viewer expects next. A wrong report that vanishes is fine; a filled-in form that appears from nowhere is not.
- Watch the pointer. If it sits top left before the cut and bottom right after it, the viewer sees it teleport. Cut where the pointer is at rest near the same spot.
- While recording, help your future self: when you fumble, stop, wait two seconds, and start the sentence again. The silence is easy to find and gives two clean places to split.
Saving a trimmed recording in QuickTime Player
Choose File > Save. If the Save command is dimmed, Apple’s guide says to click the red close button at the top left of the window, enter a name, and click Save.
For a smaller copy or a fixed resolution, choose File > Export As and pick 4K, 1080p, 720p or 480p. At 4K and 1080p a Format menu offers Greater Compatibility, which is H.264, or Smaller File Size, which is HEVC.
The file is always a QuickTime movie. Apple states it directly: QuickTime Player doesn’t export movies as MP4 videos. If the place you upload to insists on MP4, export from iMovie or convert the .mov with another tool.
Trim and cut in iMovie
If the recording is going into iMovie anyway for a zoom or a speed change, do the cuts there too. Import the file, add it to the timeline, and use the commands from Apple’s iMovie guide.
iMovie is free on the Mac App Store; the listing for the current version says it requires macOS 26.6 or later.
- Trim an end: drag the edge of the clip toward its center.
- Cut the middle: select the clip, put the playhead at the start of the section, choose Modify > Split Clip; repeat at the end of the section; select the middle piece and press Delete.
- Trim to a range: hold R and drag across the part to keep, Control-click the clip and choose Trim Selection.
- Export: File > Share > File.
Trim and cut in Qreata: Split, Delete, or cut by the word
Qreata records and edits in one app, so this applies to recordings made in Qreata. It does not import a .mov from QuickTime Player.
The ends have trim handles: drag the one at the very start or the very end of the timeline. Inner cuts are two keys. Put the playhead at the start of the unwanted section and press S (Split). Do the same at its end. Select the segment in between and press Delete. For the seven-minute example that is the end handle to 6:45; 3:30 and 4:15, Delete; the start handle to 0:20. Undo is Command-Z and redo is Shift-Command-Z, with 100 steps. The shortest segment the editor allows is 0.5 seconds.
A track selector with the options All, Video and Voice changes what Delete does. On All or Video, which behave the same, the range is removed from every track and the gap closes. On Voice, Delete silences the voice in that range and keeps the picture, which is the right tool for a cough over a screen that still has to be seen.
The transcript version is faster for speech. Open the Script panel: Qreata transcribes on the Mac, with no upload. Click a word to jump to it, Shift-click another word to select the range, and click Cut. The words and the video under them go together. In the Trim tool, Remove silences takes out every pause of 0.8 seconds or longer in one pass, and Remove filler words in the Script panel removes clear hesitations such as “um” and “uh” in English and Russian speech. These tools need a microphone track.
Cuts are non-destructive: the project keeps the full recording, and it stays editable after export. Qreata is in beta, runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later, and costs $49 once for 3 Macs, with no subscription and a 7-day trial that has every feature and no watermark.
| Task | QuickTime Player | iMovie | Qreata |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trim the ends | Edit > Trim (Command-T) | Drag the clip’s edge | Drag the start or end trim handle |
| Cut one section | Show Clips, Split Clip (Command-Y) twice, delete | Modify > Split Clip twice, Delete | S twice, Delete |
| Cut a sentence | By eye on the clip strip | By eye on the timeline | Select the words in the Script panel, Cut |
| Remove every pause | One split pair per pause | One split pair per pause | Remove silences: pauses from 0.8 s |
| Price | Free | Free | $49 once, 7-day trial |
| Edits files from | Any recorder | Any recorder, after import | Qreata only |
When a cut is the wrong fix
A cut can only remove. If you clicked Archive when you meant Send, deleting the wrong click leaves the viewer without the right one. That case needs a replacement, not a cut.
The guide “How to fix a mistake in a screen recording on Mac” covers it: the free route with QuickTime Player’s Split Clip and Insert Clip After Selection, and Replace Take in Qreata, which re-records a selected range in place.
Before you share
- The first frame is the first thing the viewer needs to see.
- Each join sits on a still screen and between sentences.
- The pointer does not jump across any join.
- No removed section took a step the viewer needs with it.
- The original, uncut recording is still on disk.
Questions about this workflow
How do I trim a screen recording on a Mac?
Open it in QuickTime Player, choose Edit > Trim or press Command-T, drag the yellow handles so the parts you do not want sit outside them, and click Trim. Then choose File > Save.
How do I cut the middle out of a screen recording on a Mac?
In QuickTime Player choose View > Show Clips, move the playhead to the start of the section and choose Edit > Split Clip (Command-Y), split again at its end, select the clip in between and delete it, then click Done. It is free and needs no other app.
Can QuickTime Player only trim the start and end?
No. Edit > Trim works on the ends, but Apple’s QuickTime Player guide also documents splitting a movie into clips and deleting or rearranging them. That is how you remove a section from the middle.
How do I clip part of a screen recording into its own file?
Split the movie around the part you want with View > Show Clips and Edit > Split Clip, delete the other clips, and save. Apple’s guide describes exactly this: split the clip, delete the parts you do not want, then save the new clip.
Does trimming in QuickTime Player reduce quality?
Apple’s guide does not say whether File > Save re-encodes the video. File > Export As does create a new copy at the resolution and format you choose, so if quality matters, save rather than export, and keep the original file either way.
Can I trim a QuickTime recording in Qreata?
No. Qreata does not import video files. Its Split, Delete and transcript cuts work on recordings made in Qreata; for a file from the built-in recorder, use QuickTime Player or iMovie.