Trim the start and end
Drop the MP3 and its waveform appears with two handles. Drag the left one to where the audio should start and the right one to where it should end; the grey parts are discarded. The quiet stretches at the ends are easy to see as flat lines, which is why a waveform beats typing timestamps. Play selection plays exactly what you will keep.
For precision, click a handle and use the arrow keys: each press moves it a tenth of a second, or a full second with Shift. You can also type a time into the Start and End boxes.
Cut a section out of the middle
Switch to Cut out selection and the handles mark what disappears instead. The audio before and after is joined with no gap; make the cut in a pause and the join is inaudible. Play around the cut lets you hear it first. To remove several sections, save and reopen the result, or use the remove-part-of-audio page, which opens ready for this.
Choosing the bitrate
An MP3 cannot be cut without being re-encoded, because MP3 is stored in frames that depend on their neighbours; every online cutter decodes and re-encodes. Re-encoding loses a little, so pick the same bitrate as the original or higher: 128 kbps is plenty for speech, 192 kbps for music. If the cut is going into an editor rather than to a listener, save it as WAV or FLAC instead and nothing more is lost.
Why do it in the browser
Recordings that need trimming are often private — a voice note, an interview, a meeting. Here the MP3 is decoded, cut and encoded inside the browser tab, so it never leaves your computer. The Network tab of your browser’s developer tools shows no request carrying the file.
Step by step
- Open the cutter and drop the MP3.
- Drag the handles around the part to keep, or choose Cut out selection to remove a section.
- Preview it, choose MP3 and a bitrate (or WAV/FLAC for no further loss), and save.
Frequently asked questions
How do I cut an MP3 for free without software?
Drop it into the editor on this page, drag the handles around the part you want, and save. It runs in your browser — no install, no upload, no watermark.
Can I cut an MP3 without losing quality?
Not as MP3: MP3 has to be re-encoded to be cut, which loses a little. At the original bitrate or higher it is inaudible. Save as WAV or FLAC if you need no further loss.
How do I remove a section from the middle?
Choose Cut out selection, mark the section with the handles and save; the parts either side are joined with no gap.
Can I cut the audio from a video?
Yes. Drop an MP4, MOV or WebM file; its soundtrack opens on the waveform and is saved as audio.
Is it safe for private recordings?
Yes. Nothing is uploaded; the recording is processed in your browser tab from start to finish.