Audio Cutter: Cut MP3, M4A and WAV Online

Open an audio file, drag the two handles over the part you want and press Play section to check it. Cut and download sends back just that part, in the same format as your file.

Drop an audio file to cut

Drag file here or pick from your device

MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, OGG, OPUS, AIFF, AIF, WMA · up to 200 MB

How to cut an audio file online

The waveform and the Play section preview run on your own device, so you can find the right spot before anything leaves it. Only when you click Cut and download does the file go to our server, which cuts out the part between the two handles and sends it back.

1
Pick the audio file
Drop the file on the box or click Browse file. The page reads it and draws the waveform, which took just over a second for our 90 second MP3, and the two blue handles start a little in from each end, 2 seconds on a file that long. If an orange line says the browser couldn't read the file, see the part below about WMA and AIFF.
2
Set the start and end
Drag the handles, or type into the Cut from and to boxes and press Enter. The boxes show minutes, seconds and thousandths, like 00:21.500, though the label under them says Hour:Minute:Second; plain seconds such as 21.5 work too. Click the waveform to move the red line, then press Play section to hear from there to the end handle.
3
Cut and download
Click Cut and download, and the button reads Cutting… while the whole file uploads and the server works; our three test files were back in 2 to 8 seconds. When Trimmed file ready appears, click Download, and use Cut another range for a second piece; it sets the handles back to the full length, and the file uploads again.

The audio cutter in three captures: the drop box, a 90 second MP3 with handles at 00:21.500 and 00:48.250, then Cutting… and the trimmed file to download

Guide

Cutting MP3, M4A and WAV files: start point, sound and file size

We measured where each cut began by lining it up against the original recording. In all three test files, an MP3, an M4A voice memo and a WAV, the sound starts at the exact moment we typed, so you can set the start in the gap before a word or a beat and it lands there.

Our three test cuts drawn to scale: a WAV copied exactly, an MP3 about the same size per minute, and a 55 second M4A larger than its 90 second voice memo

What changes from one format to the next is how the cut is made. A WAV is copied straight out of the original, while an MP3 or M4A is played through and saved again, and that second step is what decides the size of the file you get back.

Why a cut M4A can be bigger than the whole file

Phone voice memos are saved at a low setting to keep them small. The cutter saves every M4A at a much higher one, so our 55 second piece of a 90 second memo came out at 1.2 MB, while the full memo was 755 KB. Its loudness matched the original exactly, so the extra size comes only from the higher setting. If the size matters, for a message app with a limit say, run the cut through Compress Audio afterwards.

MP3 cuts are saved again at high quality

So that the cut can start at any moment you pick, the cutter saves the selected part of an MP3 again, at a high quality setting. Our test MP3 gave a 27 second cut of 459 KB, a little larger per minute than the original, with the same peak and average loudness.

WAV, FLAC, OGG and Opus are copied, not rebuilt

For these the cutter copies the chosen part without saving the sound again. Our 14.55 second WAV cut matched the original sample for sample, and it ran 32 thousandths of a second past the end point, a gap you won't hear. We only sent a WAV through the live tool, so treat the other three as untested, though FLAC, OGG and Opus files did open and draw a waveform in Chrome.

WMA and AIFF files won't open in Chrome

Chrome can't read these two formats, so the waveform stays empty and an orange line says "You can still try to trim it", but both buttons stay grayed out, and typing times does nothing. Turn the file into one Chrome can read first: WMA to MP3 for WMA, or AIFF to WAV for AIFF, which keeps it at full quality. We only tried Chrome, so another browser may behave differently.

Cutting the sound from an MP4

The upload box only takes audio files, so an MP4 video won't open here. Pull the sound out first with Extract Audio, which gives you an MP3, M4A or WAV, and cut that. If you want to keep the picture and just shorten the clip, use Cut Video instead. People sometimes search for an MP4A cutter, which is just an M4A file, and those open here as normal.

Long recordings and big files

The whole file uploads when you click Cut and download, even if you only want 10 seconds of a 2 hour podcast, and although the box says up to 200 MB, the network service in front of our server turns away uploads over about 100 MB. Before that, your browser unpacks the entire recording into memory to draw it, which by the code's math is about 1.3 GB for an hour of stereo sound, so a long file can make an older phone or laptop stall. The server also stops any cut that takes over 2 minutes, a limit our 2 to 7 second jobs were nowhere near; we haven't tried a recording longer than 90 seconds.

Last updated: 22 October 2026 · ChangeMyFile

Tested: 22 October 2026, headless Chrome 156 on a Mac against the live server, using the LibriVox public domain reading of the Gettysburg Address. MP3 (90 s, 1.44 MB, 128 kbps 44.1 kHz stereo) cut from 0:21.5 to 0:48.25: back 2.5 s after the click, 459,231 bytes, 26.750 s, MP3 at about 137 kbps, start exact to within 1/8000 s by cross-correlation, mean and peak loudness unchanged (-26.0 dB, -1.0 dB). M4A voice-memo style file (90 s, 755 KB, AAC 64 kbps mono 48 kHz) cut from 0:10 to 1:05: back in 7.6 s, 1,184,057 bytes, 55.000 s, AAC about 172 kbps, start exact, loudness unchanged. WAV (30 s, 2.6 MB, 16-bit mono 44.1 kHz) cut from 0:03.25 to 0:17.8: back in 1.8 s, 1,286,414 bytes, 14.582 s, every sample identical to the source from 3.250 s. Load-only checks with no cut sent: FLAC, OGG, Opus and AAC drew a waveform; WMA and AIFF showed the decode message with both buttons disabled.

FAQ

Audio cutter questions

At a glance

Where it runs: On our server; the waveform in your browser
Files you can add: MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG, Opus, AIFF, WMA
Result: Same format, name ends in _trimmed
Size limit: About 100 MB, one file at a time
Start point: Exact in our MP3, M4A and WAV tests
Shortest cut: A tenth of a second
Time: 2 to 8 seconds in our tests
Download link: Works for 30 minutes
Files deleted: Your upload once the cut is done, the rest in a nightly cleanup
Account: Not needed

Can't find your answer? Visit our Help center.

Is this audio cutter free?

Yes, with no account to make, and nothing is added to the file, so there's no watermark or extra sound. You can cut as many files as you like, one at a time.

How do I cut an M4A file online?

Open it here like any other file, set the two handles and click Cut and download, and you get an M4A back. Expect it to be larger per minute than a phone voice memo, because the cutter saves every M4A at a higher quality setting than phones use.

Can I cut a WAV file without losing quality?

Yes, because a WAV is copied out of the original without being saved again, so the sound you keep is exactly what was in the file, though the end can run a few hundredths of a second past the point you set.

Does cutting an MP3 make it sound worse?

Only very slightly, because the cut is saved again at a high quality setting. Every save of an MP3 loses a little, so always cut from the original file rather than from a cut you made earlier.

Can I cut the audio from an MP4 video?

Not directly, because the cutter only opens audio files. Use Extract Audio to save the sound from the video as an MP3, M4A or WAV, then cut that file here.

Why is the Cut and download button grayed out?

Usually because your browser couldn't read the file, which happened in Chrome with WMA and AIFF, and an orange line under the times tells you so. Turn the file into an MP3 or WAV with one of our format pages, then cut that instead.

How do I remove a part from the middle of a song?

The cutter keeps one stretch per cut, so do it in two. Cut from the start to where the unwanted part begins and download it, then click Cut another range and cut from where it ends to the finish. Put the two downloads together with Merge Audio.

Can I make a ringtone with it?

Yes, for the cutting part: pick the few seconds you want and download the MP3, which Android phones can use as a ringtone once the file is on the phone. An iPhone wants an M4R file, so send the cut through MP3 to M4R or M4A to M4R before adding it to the phone.

Can I add a fade in or fade out?

No, the cutter only sets a start and an end, with no fades or volume changes. Starting and ending the cut in a quiet gap is the easiest way to avoid a sudden start or a clipped word.

Does it work on a phone?

The page opens in a phone browser and the handles respond to touch, but on a small screen it's easier to type the times into the two boxes, though we tested on a computer only. A long recording can be slow to draw on a phone, since the whole file is unpacked in the browser first.

Merge Audio Compress Audio Transcribe Audio Voice Recorder