Avidemux is a free, open-source video editor built for simple cutting, filtering and re-encoding tasks — the quick, no-fuss way to trim or convert a clip without opening a full non-linear editor. It was written from scratch in C++, uses Qt for its interface and FFmpeg’s libavcodec for its multimedia heavy lifting, and runs on Linux, Windows and macOS. Development is led by the program’s original author (known as “Mean”) together with a small community of contributors; the latest stable release is 2.8.1 (September 2022), with nightly builds published continuously.

Key Features

• Lossless trimming in copy mode — mark A and B points on the timeline and save the selection with video and audio set to “Copy”: nothing is re-encoded, so a cut takes seconds and the picture quality is untouched.
• Cut, delete and join — select segments and remove the parts you don’t want (adverts, intros, mistakes), then append clips together for a basic multi-segment edit.
• Filters — a large set of video filters (resize, crop, rotate, deinterlace, sharpen, blur, colour correction and more, many ported from MPlayer and AviSynth) plus audio filters, all previewable before you commit to an encode.
• Wide format support via libavcodec — read AVI, MP4, MKV, MPEG program/transport streams, VOB, FLV, WebM, OGM and more; encode with x264, x265, MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid), VP9, DV, FFV1, HuffYUV and others.
• Audio muxing and demuxing — AAC, MP3, AC-3, Opus, Vorbis, MP2 and PCM output; insert an audio stream into a video, or extract the soundtrack to a standalone file.
• Subtitles — render SRT, SSA/ASS and MicroDVD (.SUB) subtitles onto the video, and read subtitles off a DVD by OCR.
• Projects, job queue and scripting — save every option, cut and filter into a project file, queue jobs to run unattended, and automate repetitive work with the built-in SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine.
• Command-line interface — a separate CLI (since version 2.4) for scripted, headless transcoding and batch pipelines.
• Multithreaded encoding — MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4, H.264 and H.265 encoding use multiple CPU cores.
• Lightweight and portable — a ~45 MB AppImage that needs no installation on Linux, no account and no subscription, and the official installers bundle no toolbars or adware. The interface is available in English, Czech, French, Italian and German.

Why Use Avidemux?

Most video jobs are small: cut the adverts out of a recording, trim a clip to size, change a container, or re-encode a file so an older device will play it. Avidemux is designed for exactly that scale of work. Because it can copy the video and audio streams untouched, trivial edits finish in seconds instead of re-encoding the whole file — saving both time and quality. It starts instantly, runs comfortably on modest hardware, and needs no plugins, account or subscription: it is free software licensed under the GPL, which you can use, study, modify and redistribute. For repetitive work, project files, the job queue and JavaScript scripting turn a manual workflow into a batch process, and the command-line interface makes it easy to drop into a shell script. If you occasionally need to reshape a video rather than produce one, Avidemux is faster and simpler than a full NLE.

Use Cases

• Cutting adverts, intros and outros out of TV or screen recordings, then saving the result in seconds without re-encoding.
• Trimming and joining clips for sharing, saved straight to MP4 or MKV.
• Extracting the audio track from a video into MP3 or AAC — for a podcast file, a music rip or a ringtone.
• Remuxing or re-encoding a video so it plays on an older device, TV or DVD player.
• Burning subtitles into a video, or converting between subtitle formats.
• Batch-converting a folder of clips unattended using the job queue or a script.
• Quick repair work — crop, rotate, deinterlace or adjust the colour of footage before handing it to another tool.

Platforms

Linux · macOS · Windows (x86 and x86-64), with unofficial builds for FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. In practice: official installers for Windows and macOS, a portable AppImage (plus a “legacy” AppImage for older systems) and source tarball for Linux, distribution packages from the Debian/Ubuntu communities, and nightly builds from the project site.

Licence

GNU General Public License, version 2 or any later version (GPL-2.0-or-later) — free and open-source software. The full licence text ships as COPYING in the project’s source repository.

Website

avidemux.sourceforge.net · source on GitHub · community forum

Similar open-source video editors

Shotcut — another free, cross-platform editor with a similar no-nonsense approach, but with a multi-track timeline and a broader filter set. OpenShot — friendly, drag-and-drop editing with animated titles and 3D effects. Kdenlive — the step up to a serious multi-track NLE with proxy editing and colour grading.