How do you trim your iPhone and iPad videos so they show just exactly what you want them to show? With the built-in editor!
Photos isn't just for photo editing — it has built-in video trimming as well! That means you can remove a few seconds of dead time at the beginning of your video, or an unintentional camera droop at the end.
You can even save as new clips so you can pull out all your favorite segments and use them however you want.
How to trim a video clip with the iPhone and iPad Photos app
- Launch the Photos app from your Home screen.
- Tap on the video you'd like to edit.
Tap the edit button at the top right of the screen. It looks like three horizontal lines or sliders.
- Tap and hold on the left or right side of the timeline to engage the trimming tool.
- Drag the anchor left or right to trim.
Tap and hold an anchor to expand the timeline for more precise editing.
- Tap Done on the bottom right of the screen.
Tap on Save as New Clip or Trim Original to replace the original clip.
Any questions?
If you have any trouble with video editing in the Photos app, or any questions at all, drop them in the comments!
Updated September 2017: This article has been updated with the most recent version of Photos.
Reader comments
How to trim videos in Photos for iPhone an iPad
MmmMmm Hamburgers
Initially confused the little white arrows above the "anchors" with the anchors. Both can be slood. But, the slidage of the little white arrows doesn't yield the option of "saving as a new clip". Otherwise, I was able to figger it out well enough to get the needed job done.
This might be of interest to some - my needed job. About the time of my latest iPhone OS upgrade, my laptop stopped "seeing" videos on my phone that were longer than ten minutes or so. Tried something called "Splice" to try to chop the longer ones up, but it seems to have frozen, so I was very happy to see that I could actually make this one work (after a bit of fiddling). Also happy to learn that them lines is called a "hamburger menu".
For example, it wouldn't "see" my 21 minute video, but could see one a bit over 14 minutes (just checked it). I chopped the longer one down to 18 minutes, but it still couldn't see it. Present guess, then, is that the cutoff is 15 minutes. I shoulda been a detective. . .
Oh, and before the laptop stopped seeing the longer ones, it was able to find a 2 and a half hour doubles match. Oh, and I think I've learnt that, if I don't want the thing to stop recording unexpectedly, it's less likely to be interrupted if I set the phone on "airplane mode". Apparently an incoming text or phone call can make the video stop recording. Although, it does sometimes *still* stop recording unexpectedly. Ain't got to the bottom of that one, yet. . .
I find that to trim a video clip no amount of tap and hold of the anchor point allows me to enable/perform a trim of the video instead I have to hold and slide upwards to enable the yellow trim frame.(iOS 10.2.1). Help this might make things clearer for some of those that may be struggling out there like I was.
That absolutely 100% did not work.
Edit: I figured it out. It works.
How to Trim Video on iPhone ?