A two-hour recording is hard to share. A lecture needs one file per chapter. A long clip is over the size limit of the site you want to upload it to. In each case the answer is the same: split the video into parts.
This video splitter works in three ways. You can cut the video into parts of equal length, place split points exactly where you want them, or set a length and let every piece last that long. Each piece comes out as its own MP4, and you can save them all together as a ZIP.
Your video is never uploaded. The splitting happens inside your browser tab, on your own device. Read on for how each mode works and which one to pick.
How to split a video online
The video splitter is the tool at the top of this page. Four steps take you from one long file to several short ones.
- Press Select video, or drop your file anywhere on the page. The video opens with a preview and a timeline.
- Under Split, pick a mode: Equal parts, At points or By length. Each line on the timeline marks where a new piece starts.
- Check the Pieces list in the panel. It shows every piece with its start, end and length, and how many files you will get.
- Press Split. Each piece comes out as its own MP4. Save them one by one, or all together as a ZIP.
Nothing is changed until you press Split, so you can switch between modes and compare the results. The Pieces list updates as you go.
Choose how to split: equal parts, points or length
There are three ways to split a video into parts, and each suits a different job. This table is a quick guide.
| Mode | Best for | What you set |
|---|---|---|
| Equal parts | Same-size pieces, such as thirds | Number of parts, from 2 to 20 |
| At points | Chapters, scenes or songs | Markers you place on the timeline |
| By length | Upload limits and fixed-length clips | Each part lasts, from 1 second up to half the video |
Split a video into equal parts
Pick Equal parts and use the Number of parts stepper. It goes from 2 to 20. The split points are placed for you, so a 30-minute video set to 3 parts gives you three pieces of 10 minutes. This is the quickest way to split a video into equal parts when you do not care where the breaks fall.
Split at points you place
Pick At points when the breaks matter. Each split shows on the timeline as a numbered marker, and you can drag it to the exact moment. Double-click the timeline to add a marker there, or press “Add a split at the playhead” to add one wherever the preview is paused.
To remove a split, press the × on the piece that comes after it in the Pieces list. When you switch to At points from another mode, the splits you already had turn into markers, so nothing jumps. Splits must be at least 0.3 seconds from the ends of the video and from each other.
Split by length
Pick By length and move the Each part lasts slider. This is how to split a video by time: the slider runs from 1 second up to half of the video, and every piece lasts that long. The last piece holds whatever is left, and a leftover shorter than half a second is not made into a piece of its own. If your video is 10 minutes and you set the slider to 4 minutes, you get pieces of 4, 4 and 2 minutes.
One split makes at most 100 files. If a short length on a long video would make more, the panel says so and asks you to raise the length.
Split a long video to fit an upload limit
Many sites and apps limit how big or how long a file can be. Splitting is a simple fix. For most MP4 files, most of the video is copied rather than re-encoded, so each piece stays close to the size of the matching part of the original. A video like that, split into four equal parts, gives you four files that are each about a quarter of the original size.
Set By length to the longest piece the site allows, and press Split. To split a video for WhatsApp Status or a story with a time limit, set By length to that limit, so each piece fits one post. If a piece is still too big, shrink it afterwards with Compress video. If you need a different format, run the pieces through Convert video.
Split an MP4 without re-encoding the whole file
Pieces are named after your original, with a number added. A file called lecture.mp4 comes back as lecture_part-01.mp4, lecture_part-02.mp4 and so on. When there are many files, the Done screen lists the first few and says how many more are in the ZIP. Press Save all as ZIP to get them together.
The pieces fit back together exactly, with no frame lost or repeated at a split point. When the video inside is H.264, the most common kind in an MP4, only the few frames right at each split are re-encoded. The rest is copied as it is, so the quality is the same as your original and the job is quick.
Two cases are re-encoded in full: a video in another codec, such as HEVC or VP9, and any file that cannot be read quickly. The pieces still line up exactly and come out as H.264 MP4s, but the job takes longer and each piece can end up larger or smaller than its part of the original. If you ever want the whole video back, join the pieces again with Merge videos.
Splitting is not the only way to shorten a video. If you only want one part, use Trim video. If you want to remove parts from the middle and keep the rest as one video, choose Remove parts on that same page.
Formats, size and privacy
The video splitter opens common video files, including MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, M4V, AVI, WMV, TS, FLV and MPG, and each piece is an MP4. Most videos have no size limit. Some files, such as certain AVI or WMV videos, take longer, and those can be up to 2 GB.
Each piece is an ordinary MP4, so it opens in the other video tools too. To swap left and right in a clip filmed the wrong way round, use flip video. To swap top and bottom, the upside down video page flips it vertically.
Your video is read from your disk and processed in this browser tab. The server does no video work, so there is nothing to upload or delete. The tool works in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox. It is free, with no account and no watermark, and video tools do not count towards the free daily limit that applies to document conversions.
Split your video now
To split a video online, choose Equal parts, At points or By length, check the Pieces list, and press Split. The video splitter gives you one MP4 per piece, saved one by one or as a ZIP, and the video never leaves your device.
Scroll back up to the tool, press Select video, and break your long video into files that are easy to share.
