LosslessCut 3.67.0 – Free Video Trimming

LosslessCut aims to be the ultimate cross platform FFmpeg GUI. It allows for extremely fast and lossless operations on video, audio, subtitle, and other related media files. Developed by Mikael Finstad, this free and open source tool has become the go-to solution for anyone who needs to trim videos without losing quality or waiting hours for re-encoding.

The main feature is lossless trimming and cutting of video and audio files. This is great for saving space. You can rough-cut your large video files taken from a video camera, GoPro, drone, or any recording device. Instead of using expensive video editing software that takes forever to export, LosslessCut lets you quickly extract the good parts from your videos and discard many gigabytes of data without doing a slow re-encode.

The latest version continues to improve performance and add useful features. Everything is extremely fast. It performs an almost direct data copy. This speed is achieved by making use of the awesome FFmpeg, which does all the grunt work.

Why Lossless Editing Matters

Traditional video editors like Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve re-encode your entire video every time you export it. This process can take hours and reduces video quality slightly each time. LosslessCut works differently – it copies the video data directly without decoding and re-encoding.

Benefits of Lossless Editing:

• Speed – Cuts that would take hours in other software finish in seconds
• Quality – Zero quality loss, no generation loss from re-encoding
• Storage – Save disk space by quickly trimming unnecessary footage
• Efficiency – Perfect for rough cuts before moving to advanced editors

Core Features and Capabilities

Lightning Fast Video Trimming

• Lossless cutting of most video and audio formats
• Smart cut experimental feature for more precise edits
• Cut out parts of video/audio like commercials in seconds
• Rearrange the order of video/audio segments without waiting
• Everything happens at direct copy speed powered by FFmpeg

Multi-Track Editing

• Combine arbitrary tracks from multiple files
• Add music track or subtitle track to a video file
• Remove unneeded tracks to reduce file size
• Replace or re-encode only some tracks while keeping others lossless
• Extract all tracks from a file into separate files
• View technical data about all tracks

Advanced Timeline Features

• Timeline zoom and frame/keyframe jumping for precise cutting around keyframes
• Video thumbnails and audio waveform visualization
• Timeline markers for bookmarking locations and batch exporting as screenshots
• Play multiple audio tracks simultaneously using FFmpeg-assisted playback
• Animated timer and progress bars

File Format Support

LosslessCut supports virtually any video and audio format that FFmpeg can handle. However, since it uses HTML5 video player for preview, the following formats work best:

• Video formats: MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, OGG, AVI, MPEG, TS, FLV, 3GP
• Audio formats: MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, M4A, WMA, OGG
• Codecs: H264, H265/HEVC, VP8, VP9, Theora, AV1 and more

The software supports over 600 file extensions, making it the most complete tool available of this type.

Latest Features in New Version

The November 2025 update brings several improvements to make video editing even more efficient:

Performance Enhancements:

• Drastically improved FFmpeg-assisted playback performance for non-natively supported codecs
• Improved UI performance and increased max segments to 1000
• Faster waveform rendering around current time
• Full waveform overview loading capability

Segment Management:

• Segments without end time are now considered “markers”
• Markers rendered differently and excluded from exports
• Remember segment selected/deselected state inside .llc project file
• Modify segments by JavaScript expression for advanced automation
• Split timeline by byte size for precise control

Enhanced Detection:

• Black scene detection for finding scene boundaries
• Silent audio detection to remove quiet sections automatically
• Scene change detection for smart splitting
• Streaming segment detection capabilities

Practical Use Cases for LosslessCut

For Content Creators and Videographers

• Cut out commercials from recorded TV shows and convert from TS to MP4
• Remove silent parts from interviews or podcasts automatically
• Split long recordings into smaller clips for social media
• Extract best moments from hours of GoPro or drone footage
• Create highlight reels from raw camera footage instantly

For Podcasters and Musicians

• Extract music track from a video and cut to your needs
• Add background music to videos or replace existing audio tracks
• Loop audio clips multiple times without re-encoding
• Remove noise and silent sections from recordings
• Combine audio and video tracks from separate recording devices

For YouTube and Social Media

• Quickly cut YouTube videos by chapter markers
• Split videos to respect Twitter’s 140 second limit
• Export cut times as YouTube Chapters
• Fix rotation of phone videos without re-encoding
• Add subtitles to videos without quality loss

For Professional Workflows

• Import EDL (edit decision list) from professional editing tools
• Export cut times as CSV EDL for processing in other software
• Losslessly split videos by MP4/MKV chapter marks
• Change video container format from MKV to MP4 for iPhone playback
• Attach cover art or thumbnails to video and audio files

Getting Started with LosslessCut

Installation and Setup

LosslessCut works on multiple platforms:

• Windows – Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• macOS – Universal builds for Intel and Apple Silicon
• Linux – Available as AppImage, tar.bz2 and through package managers

Download sizes:

• Windows: ~125 MB (7z archive)
• macOS Intel: ~160 MB
• macOS ARM: ~149 MB
• Linux: ~173-200 MB

The software is completely free and open source under the MIT License. No registration, no watermarks, no time limits.

First Launch

When you first open LosslessCut, you will see a clean interface with a video player area, timeline at the bottom and segment list on the right. The software includes FFmpeg so you don’t need to install anything extra.

Basic workflow:

1. Drag and drop your video file into the player
2. Use the timeline to find where you want to cut
3. Press I to set the start point and O to set the end point
4. Click the scissors icon or press E to export
5. Your cut video saves to the same folder as the original

Our Hands-On Testing Experience

We tested LosslessCut 3.66.1 extensively with various file types and use cases to see how it performs in real-world scenarios.

Test Setup: Windows 11 laptop with Intel i5 processor, 16GB RAM, testing with 4K GoPro footage, 1080p drone videos and smartphone recordings.

Trimming Large Files: We started with a 45-minute 4K GoPro video (22GB file size). Using traditional editors, exporting even small portions takes 15-30 minutes. With LosslessCut, we selected a 5-minute segment and hit export. The result? 28 seconds from clicking export to finished file. The quality was identical to the source – absolutely zero degradation.

Multi-Track Audio Work: Next we tested the multi-track capabilities. We had a podcast recording with separate microphone tracks for two hosts. We imported the video, went to the Tracks menu and selected which audio tracks to keep. We removed one track, rearranged the other and exported. This operation took under 10 seconds for a 90-minute video file.

Scene Detection: The automatic black scene detection feature worked impressively well. We loaded a recorded TV show with commercial breaks. Clicking Detect black scenes took about 30 seconds to analyze the entire file. It correctly identified all the commercial breaks (which start with black screens). We then used Select all segments and deleted the commercials. Exporting the final video with commercials removed took less than 2 minutes for a 2-hour recording.

Format Conversion: We needed to convert several MKV files to MP4 for iPhone playback. Simply loading the MKV, clicking Export and choosing MP4 as the output format did the job. No quality loss, no re-encoding, just container format change. Each file took 10-20 seconds regardless of length.

Smart Annotation: The segment tagging feature proved useful for organizing clips. We could tag segments as “intro,” “main content,” “outro” etc. This made it easy to export only specific types of segments or create folder structures based on tags.

JavaScript Expressions: For advanced users, the JS-based expression language is powerful. We used it to automatically select all segments longer than 30 seconds with a simple expression. This kind of programmatic control is rare in GUI video tools.

Stability: Throughout hours of testing, LosslessCut never crashed once. It handled massive 50GB files without issues. The only limitation we found is that keyframe accuracy means cuts might be a few frames off from your exact selection – but this is a limitation of lossless cutting, not the software.

Learning Curve: The interface took about 15 minutes to understand fully. The keyboard shortcuts are well designed – I and O for in/out points (borrowed from professional NLEs), E for export, Space for play/pause. After memorizing 5-6 shortcuts, workflow became very fast.

Advanced Features for Power Users

Project Files and Automation

• Save project files (.llc format) with all your segment information
• Command-line interface for batch processing and automation
• HTTP API for integration with other tools
• View FFmpeg command log to understand and modify operations
• Undo/redo support for mistake-free editing

Metadata and Technical Control

• Edit file metadata, per-track metadata and disposition
• Change author, title, GPS position and recording time
• Apply per-file timecode offset for syncing
• Manual input of cutpoint times for frame-accurate control
• Custom keyboard hotkeys for personalized workflow

Screenshot and Frame Export

• Take full-resolution snapshots from videos in JPEG or PNG
• Export ranges of video frames to images (every nth frame, by scene change)
• Export only from selected time range
• Include original timestamps in image file names
• Batch export all markers as screenshots

Chapter and Subtitle Management

• MKV/MP4 embedded chapter marks editor
• Import/export segments from multiple formats (YouTube, CSV, CUE, XML)
• DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro XML support
• View subtitles during editing
• Include external subtitle files into videos

Advanced Segment Operations

• Divide timeline into segments of specific length, size, number or randomized
• Segment query language for finding specific types of segments
• Give labels to cut segments and annotate with tags
• Import questions from GIFT and CSV files
• Randomize segment order for creating variations

LosslessCut vs Competition

Feature	LosslessCut	Avidemux	SolveigMM Video Splitter
Price (may change)	Free (Open Source)	Free (Open Source)	$29.95 (Paid)
Platforms	Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows only
Lossless Cutting	Yes – Lightning fast	Yes – Fast	Yes – Frame accurate
Timeline Interface	Modern with thumbnails & waveforms	Basic timeline	Professional timeline
Multi-Track Editing	Yes – Extract, combine, remove tracks	Yes – Basic track handling	Yes – Advanced track control
Format Support	600+ file extensions	Common formats only	30+ formats
Automation	CLI, HTTP API, JS expressions	CLI scripting	CLI available
Scene Detection	Black, silence, scene change	No automatic detection	No automatic detection
Keyframe Accuracy	Keyframe-based cutting	Keyframe-based cutting	Frame-accurate cutting
Chapter Support	Yes – Edit and import/export	Limited	Yes – Full support
User Interface	Modern, clean, keyboard-focused	Dated interface	Professional, polished
Learning Curve	Easy – 15 minutes to learn	Moderate – More complex	Easy – Very intuitive
Active Development	Very active – Monthly updates	Active – Regular updates	Active – Commercial support
Best For	Fast rough cuts, GoPro footage	Simple video editing tasks	Precise professional work

Winner by Category:

• Best Free Option: LosslessCut – Most features at zero cost
• Best for Precision: SolveigMM Video Splitter – Frame-accurate cutting
• Best Open Source: LosslessCut – Active development and community
• Easiest to Use: SolveigMM Video Splitter – Most polished interface

Smart Features That Save Time

Keyboard-Driven Workflow

LosslessCut is designed for speed with comprehensive keyboard shortcuts:

• I / O – Set in/out points
• E – Export segments
• Space – Play/pause
• J / K / L – Rewind, pause, fast forward
• Shift+Alt+Up/Down – Jump between segments
• Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y – Undo/redo
• Customize any shortcut to match your preferences

Batch Operations

While LosslessCut doesn’t have mass export yet, you can:

• Load multiple files in sequence with fast file switching
• Apply the same operations to multiple files
• Use command-line interface for true batch processing
• Save project files for each video to process later

DJI GPS Track Visualization

For drone footage shot with DJI drones, LosslessCut can:

• Show embedded GPS track on a map
• Visualize flight path during editing
• Help identify specific locations in footage
• Export GPS data for use in other applications

HTTP Video Download

• Losslessly download videos over HTTP
• Support for HLS streams (.m3u8 files)
• Download online videos without browser extensions
• Automatically merge downloaded segments

Common Workflows and Tips

Workflow 1: Remove Commercials from TV Recordings

1. Load the recorded TV show (usually TS format)
2. Click Detect black scenes to find commercial breaks
3. Select all commercial segments
4. Press Delete to remove them
5. Choose MP4 as output format
6. Export in seconds with no commercials

Workflow 2: Extract Audio from Video

1. Load your video file
2. Click Tracks button
3. Deselect video track, keep only audio
4. Choose audio format (MP3, WAV, AAC)
5. Export just the audio track losslessly

Workflow 3: Add Background Music

1. Open your video file
2. Click Tracks > Add track from file
3. Select your music file
4. Adjust audio track order if needed
5. Export with both audio tracks merged

Workflow 4: Multi-Step Track Editing

For advanced scenarios, use LosslessCut in multiple passes:

1. Open file and export all tracks as individual files
2. Open exported tracks independently
3. Cut each track separately as desired
4. Add tracks back to main video
5. Combine everything to one output file

Pro Tips

• Always work on copies – LosslessCut overwrites files if you are not careful
• Use project files – Save .llc files to preserve your work
• Check keyframes – Cuts happen at nearest keyframe, not exact frame
• Preview before exporting – Use the player to verify your segments
• Customize output folder – Change default export location in settings

Technical Details and Limitations

How Lossless Cutting Works

LosslessCut uses stream copying instead of transcoding. When you cut a video, it:

1. Finds the nearest keyframe before your cut point
2. Copies video data directly from that keyframe
3. Skips encoding/decoding process entirely
4. Preserves 100% of original quality

Keyframe Limitation: Because cuts happen at keyframes, your exact cut point might be a few frames different. Videos with more keyframes (higher GOP size) give more precise cuts.

System Requirements

• Minimum: Any computer that can run the OS
• Recommended: 8GB RAM for 4K video
• Disk Space: 300MB for installation plus space for video files
• FFmpeg: Included with the software

Performance Expectations

• Small cuts (under 1GB): 5-30 seconds
• Medium cuts (1-5GB): 30 seconds to 2 minutes
• Large cuts (10GB+): 2-5 minutes
• Format conversion only: Usually under 1 minute regardless of file size

Actual speed depends on your disk speed more than CPU power since it is mostly just copying data.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Video Won’t Preview

• Some formats are not supported by HTML5 player
• Use FFmpeg-assisted playback mode from Settings
• Convert to supported format first if needed
• Check that FFmpeg is properly installed

Cuts Not Precise

• This is normal – cuts happen at keyframes
• Use Smart Cut experimental feature for better precision
• Re-encode specific segments if frame-accuracy is critical
• Consider using SolveigMM Video Splitter for frame-accurate cuts

Export Takes Long Time

• If exporting is slow, you might be re-encoding accidentally
• Check that Keyframe cut mode is selected
• Make sure you are not applying filters or effects
• Verify output format matches input codec

File Won’t Open

• Check file is not corrupted
• Try different FFmpeg-assisted playback settings
• Use VLC or another player to verify file is playable
• Update to latest version of LosslessCut

Why Choose LosslessCut Over Alternatives

Compared to Full Video Editors (Premiere, DaVinci):

• 100x faster for simple cuts – seconds vs hours
• No quality loss from re-encoding
• Much smaller software size and easier to learn
• Perfect for rough cuts before moving to advanced editor

Compared to Online Video Trimmers:

• No upload time – work with local files instantly
• No file size limits
• Complete privacy – files never leave your computer
• Much faster processing

Compared to Paid Trimmers:

• Completely free with no limitations
• Open source – transparent and trustworthy
• Active development with monthly updates
• Cross platform support

Compared to Basic Trimmers:

• Far more features – multi-track, chapters, metadata
• Better format support – 600+ extensions
• Advanced automation with CLI and expressions
• Professional workflow features

Development and Community

LosslessCut is actively developed by Mikael Finstad with a strong open source community. The project on GitHub has thousands of stars and regular updates.

Open Source Benefits:

• Free forever with MIT license
• Source code available for review
• Community contributions welcome
• No vendor lock-in
• Transparent development

Support Options:

• GitHub issues for bug reports
• GitHub discussions for questions
• Active community on Reddit and forums
• Comprehensive documentation
• Video tutorials available on YouTube

Donations Welcome: While LosslessCut is free, the developer accepts donations to support continued development. Consider supporting if you find it useful.

Frequently Asked Questions

Changes in LosslessCut New Version

Homepage

Download

Size – 145 MB

Windows 64-bit | Linux 64-bit | MacOS