OSX Video editing - light duty

October 10, 2018 1:38 PM

Lightweight video cropping software for OSX needed.

I have several (hundred...) videos on my Mac that I need to crop down to 3-4 minute lengths of varying formats (.mov and .mp4 mainly). I need a lightweight, simple video editing tool to mainly just crop them at each end to the relevant section, plus maybe set a resolution/size standard.

I have been using Quicktime 7 to crop these but it's super old and surely can't be the only way. iMovie is too heavy and also I have to convert .mov to even use it. Is there something simpler? I have been idly looking at Videopad and FFWorks but I'm not sure about if that is overkill. I really just need to trim these files and keep them for reference. What should I be looking at - I don't mind paying if it isn't a $shitload

posted by Brockles to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

VLC media player is free, and it's a good alternative to something like Quicktime. Here's a step by step for using VLC to crop videos: Cut Videos with VLC media player. I think VLC probably would count as pretty lightweight software.

(I use VLC on a Mac, fwiw, although I have to admit that I use iMovie for video editing, but I can understand why you might find iMovie not to be the best application for this; iMovie can be annoying to use.)
posted by litera scripta manet at 1:53 PM on October 10, 2018

MPEG Streamclip is another free option.
posted by pompomtom at 2:12 PM on October 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Seconding MPEG Stremclip, which is what I used to edit my student teaching videos on a 2011-era Macbook Air -- not a lot of computing power needed for that one!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:28 PM on October 10, 2018

MPEG Streamclip has been my quick editor for many years. Lots of formats, lots of options, but for simple cropping you can stick with a very spare interface.
posted by NumberSix at 9:46 PM on October 10, 2018