Split one long video into many short ones
TubePull Video Splitter divides a video file into a row of consecutive parts, each no longer than the length you set. It suits a recording that has to be posted as a series of stories or statuses, a lecture you want in chapters of about the same length, or a file that is simply too long for the place it has to go. Choose a part length, press Start, then save the parts one at a time or all together in a ZIP. The cutting is done by your browser on your computer or phone, and the video never travels to a server. The splitter costs nothing, asks for no account and stamps no logo on the parts.
Choosing the part length
| Choice | Each part runs for at most |
|---|---|
| 15 seconds | 15 seconds |
| 30 seconds | 30 seconds |
| 60 seconds | 1 minute, the choice selected when the page opens |
| Custom | Any whole number of seconds from 1 to 3,600 (one hour) |
A custom length must be a whole number, so 90 is fine and 1.5 is not. If the field holds something else, it is marked as invalid, the last valid length stays in force, and Start remains unavailable until the number is corrected. The length you pick is remembered when you open another video.
Story and status limits differ from app to app and change from time to time. WhatsApp's own help center, for one, gives 90 seconds as the longest status video, which you can enter under Custom. Check the current limit in the app you post to.
Where each cut lands
A compressed video can only be cut cleanly at a keyframe: a frame saved whole, while the frames that follow it store only the changes. The splitter therefore ends each part at the last keyframe that falls within your chosen length, counted from the start of that part. A part's video never runs longer than the length you picked, and it is often a little shorter. The next part begins exactly where the previous one stopped, so no moment is skipped or shown twice, and the final part takes whatever is left at the end.
Here is how that plays out. In a 100-second video with a keyframe every 4 seconds, 30-second parts end at 28, 56 and 84 seconds, which gives four parts, the last one 16 seconds long.
You don't pick the cut times yourself. To cut at one exact moment, use the Video Trimmer instead, which makes a single clip between a start and an end time of your choice.
Copied parts and re-encoded parts
Most parts are copies. Their video and audio data is moved into the new file exactly as it was stored, without being decoded, so a copied part keeps the full quality of the original. A part is re-encoded instead, which means decoded and compressed again, in these cases:
- No keyframe within reach. When no keyframe follows the part's start within the part length, there is nowhere to end a copy. The part is encoded again and ends exactly at the part length. The last part is the exception: it runs to the end of the video and is copied whenever it starts on a keyframe.
- A start between keyframes. The part after such a cut begins between two keyframes, so it can't be copied either. It is re-encoded and ends at the last keyframe within its length, if there is one.
- Unreadable keyframes. If the tool can't list the video's keyframes, every part is re-encoded.
So with keyframes 20 seconds apart and 15-second parts, the parts run 15, 5, 15, 5 seconds and so on, all of them re-encoded. A part length at least as long as the widest gap between keyframes keeps every part a copy.
A re-encoded part stays in the original container but loses a little detail, and it takes longer to make than a copy. The encoder built into your browser keeps the codecs the video already used. When the compatibility engine described below makes the part, MP4 and MOV parts get H.264 video with AAC sound, WebM parts get VP8 with Opus, and in MKV and MPEG-TS parts HEVC, VP9 or AV1 video becomes H.264.
What you get
- Format: each part uses the container of your video and keeps its file extension, so a MOV is split into MOVs.
- Tracks: the main video track and every audio track. Subtitles and chapters are not carried over.
- Timing: every part starts at zero, and its sound stays aligned with the picture to within about one frame.
- Names: your file name, then "-part" and the part number, then the extension. holiday.mp4 becomes holiday-part01.mp4, holiday-part02.mp4 and so on. Numbers have two digits, and three when there are 100 parts or more, so the files sort in order.
Once the split has finished, the parts appear in order below the tool. Each row shows the part number, where the part starts in the original, how long it lasts and its size in MB to one decimal place, along with a preview when your browser can play the format and a Download button for that part.
With two parts or more, a Download all (ZIP) button follows the list. It packs every part, under the names above and in order, into one archive named after your video, such as holiday-parts.zip. The parts are stored in the ZIP as they are, without being compressed again, so the archive is about as large as the parts together. While it is being built, a line shows the percentage done. If the ZIP can't be made, for example because browser storage is full, the parts can still be saved one by one.
If one part can't be made, the message names that part, for example "Part 3 could not be made.", followed by the reason. No parts from that run are offered.
Formats the splitter reads
Five containers are accepted here: MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM and MPEG-TS. A copied part is never decoded, so the codec inside the file doesn't need to be one your browser can play. Only re-encoded parts need a decoder and an encoder.
Audio-only files, album art or not, are rejected because there is no picture to split. Splitting works on a single file per run, and copy-protected (DRM) videos are turned away.
How the splitting is done
The file never leaves this tab. Neither its contents nor its name nor what the splitter reads from it is passed to TubePull or a third party. Apart from loading its own program files, the tool makes no network requests.
MP4 and WebM videos are split in the page by the open-source Mediabunny library, using your browser's WebCodecs encoders for any re-encoded part, so there is no large download. If that route fails, the compatibility engine takes over the job. MOV, MKV and MPEG-TS videos always go to the compatibility engine, which is FFmpeg compiled for WebAssembly (ffmpeg.wasm). It is a download of around 32 MB the first time it is needed, which the browser then keeps in its cache for later visits. The licenses page has both components' versions, licenses and source links.
Limits worth knowing
- 200 parts at most. The video's length divided by the part length, rounded up, may not exceed 200. Above that, Start stays off and a message names the shortest length that works: a 2-hour video at 30 seconds would make 240 parts, so the message asks for at least 36 seconds. Because parts end at keyframes, the final count can come out a little above that figure. A video longer than 200 hours can't be split at all.
- Nothing to split. When the video is no longer than the chosen length, a message says so and asks for a shorter one.
- Waiting for keyframes. Start becomes available once the tool has found the keyframes, which it does in the background after you choose the file.
- Size. The compatibility engine refuses a video larger than about 1.5 GB, which covers MOV, MKV and MPEG-TS files and any job it takes over. Otherwise your device's memory is the limit, and a phone warns you when the video is over 500 MB.
- Open GOPs. Some encoders, the common HEVC encoder x265 among them by default, let a few frames stored after a keyframe depend on frames before it. Such frames can't survive a copied cut, so a fraction of a second may go missing at those cut points.
The splitter has no settings for picture size, quality or format. To put parts back together, use the Video Joiner.
Splitting a video that's online
The splitter needs a file on your device. A recording you've only seen on YouTube, TikTok or a similar site can be fetched with the TubePull downloader, after which you open the saved file here. If a part is still too big for an upload limit, run it through the Video Compressor. Every tool in the set is listed under free video tools.