How to cut and trim a video on Android, including the middle

To trim a video on Android, open it in Google Photos, drag the trim handles to the part you want to keep and tap Save. That cuts the start and the end. To cut out a part in the middle, you need an editor that can split a clip, or a workaround with two trimmed copies. If the part you want gone is something you said, a transcript editor removes it by deleting the words.

This guide covers Google Photos, which is the default gallery on Pixel phones and available on nearly every Android phone. Samsung’s Gallery works differently; see how to cut out parts of a video on Samsung.

How to trim a video on Android with Google Photos

Google’s steps (Google Photos Help):

1. Open the Google Photos app.
2. Open the video you want to edit. The editing tools appear on a bar you can scroll.
3. Touch and hold, then drag the trim handles to select the part you want to keep.
4. At the top, tap Save. Google Photos saves a copy with your edits.

The same editor can change speed for a selected part of the clip (¼×, ½×, 2× or 4×) and stabilise shaky footage. Because Save creates a copy, the original stays in your library until you delete it.

This is the answer to “how to shorten a video on Android” when the extra length is at the beginning or the end. If it is in the middle, read on.

Cutting out a part in the middle

The trim handles select one continuous range to keep. Everything outside goes; nothing inside can. Google Photos received a redesigned video editor in December 2025 with a timeline and multi-clip editing, and it became the default editor on Android (TechCrunch). Google is also testing an automatic trim, but according to an app teardown from July 2026 it only removes excess footage at the start and end, not in the middle (Android Authority).

So for a cut in the middle you have two routes.

Route 1: two trimmed copies

1. Trim the video so it ends just before the part you want to remove, and save.
2. Open the original again, trim it so it starts just after that part, and save.
3. Join the two copies into one video. In the redesigned Google Photos editor you can add clips to the timeline and drag them into order (Android Authority); the full steps for joining clips on Android are in how to merge videos on Android.

It works, but every additional cut doubles the bookkeeping.

Route 2: an editor that splits

Any timeline editor does it in one project. In Adobe Premiere’s free mobile app, CapCut, InShot, VN or LumaFusion the pattern is the same:

1. Import the video.
2. Move the playhead to the start of the part you want to remove and tap Split.
3. Move to the end of the part and split again.
4. Select the piece in between and delete it.
5. Export.

Adobe Premiere arrived on Android in September 2026. It is free for basic editing, needs no account, exports up to 4K and adds no watermark (Tech Advisor), which makes it a good default if you just need a split.

The hard part in any of them is finding the exact spot. On speech, you scrub back and forth until the playhead sits between two words, and one frame either way clips a syllable.

Cutting a talking-head video by deleting the words

When the part you want to cut out is a false start, a repeated sentence or a long “um”, you already know where it is. You just cannot see it on a timeline. In a transcript you can.

slicecut works on Android the same way it does on iPhone:

1. Import the clip from your gallery. The app transcribes the audio; only the audio track leaves the phone.
2. Tap a word to strike it, or drag across a sentence to strike the whole line. The cut lands right before the next word.
3. Set the pauses. One dial sets every pause in the project to a target length; pin the ones that should stay long.
4. Export. The video is rendered on the phone at source quality, without a watermark, and saved to your gallery.

Each strike is a cut in the middle, and there is no limit to how many you make. Nothing is rendered until export, so you can bring any word back with a tap.

slicecut is built for speech. To cut a silent stretch out of a concert clip, a timeline editor is the better tool.

Which method to use

What you want to cut	Method
The start or end	Google Photos: trim handles, Save
One silent section in the middle	Two trimmed copies, or Split in a free editor such as Premiere
Several sections, music, titles	A timeline editor: Premiere, CapCut, LumaFusion
Mistakes, repeats and pauses in someone talking	A transcript editor such as slicecut

Tips

• Cut in the gap between words. Even a tenth of a second of silence hides a cut better than a cut inside a word.
• Do not cut every pause. Speech without any pauses sounds rushed. The typical gap between sentences in a talking-head video is around a third of a second (How long should a pause be?).
• Expect a jump. If you remove something from the middle of a single shot, the picture jumps. That is a jump cut, and in talking-head videos viewers are used to it.
• Keep the original until the edited version is posted.

If you also edit on an iPhone, the steps there are in how to cut out parts of a video on iPhone.