How to Cut an MP3 and Make a Ringtone in Your Browser
The best 25 seconds of a song make a great ringtone; the other three and a half minutes don't. Or you've recorded a voice note for a class, and there's an awkward "um, wait" in the middle. MP3 cutter shows the audio as a waveform, lets you drag handles to pick a section, and saves exactly the part you want.
Steps
- Open an audio file. MP3, M4A/AAC, WAV and OGG work in all current browsers; FLAC and WebM work in most.
- Drag the start and end handles on the waveform, or type exact times.
- Press Play selection to hear it.
- Set fades and the output format (MP3 or WAV).
- Save and download.
Keep a part, or remove a part
There are two modes, and the second is the one people don't expect:
- Keep selection saves only what's between the handles: a ringtone, a clip for a video, a podcast snippet.
- Remove selection cuts out what's between the handles and joins the rest with a short crossfade. A cough, a mistake or a long pause vanishes without an audible click at the join.
Fades
A clip that starts or ends abruptly sounds cheap, especially a ringtone that cuts in mid-note. A short fade in and fade out smooths the edges. Half a second to a second is usually enough for a ringtone; for speech, a very short fade just avoids clicks.
Quality
The selected audio is decoded and re-encoded at the bitrate you pick. 192 kbps suits music; 128 kbps is plenty for speech. At 192 kbps and above, the difference from a typical MP3 is very hard to hear. Choose WAV if you'll keep editing the clip elsewhere and don't want another round of compression.
Making a ringtone
- Open the song and find the hook. Zoom in on the waveform; the loud chorus is usually easy to spot.
- Select up to 30 seconds.
- Add a short fade in and out.
- Save as MP3.
Android phones accept an MP3 directly as a ringtone. On iPhone, ringtones are added through GarageBand or a Mac, so you'll take the file there.
Other common uses
- Trimming WhatsApp voice notes before forwarding them to a group.
- Cutting the silence from the start of a recorded lecture.
- Making an audio clip for an Instagram reel that starts exactly on the beat.
- Removing a stumble from a voice-over for a presentation.
If you need to record the audio first, the Online voice recorder pairs well. For audio that's inside a video, extract it with Video to MP3 and then trim here.
Tips
- Type exact times when you need precision. Dragging handles on a phone is fiddly.
- Listen to the selection twice before saving: once for the start, once for the end.
- Only use songs you have the right to use for anything public.
Finding the exact spot
The waveform is your friend. Speech shows as clusters with flat gaps between sentences, so cut inside a gap rather than mid-word. Music shows loud and quiet passages; a chorus usually stands out as a denser block. Play the selection, nudge a handle, play again. Two or three rounds usually lands it.
Privacy
According to the page, the file is decoded and encoded in the browser and saved straight to your downloads. There are Google ads on the page, as elsewhere on the site.
FAQ
How long should a ringtone be? Up to 30 seconds, with short fades.
Does cutting reduce quality? It re-encodes, but at 192 kbps or more it's very hard to hear the difference.
Can I remove something from the middle? Yes, use Remove selection; the two sides are crossfaded.
Which formats can I open? Anything your browser can play.
Got a song or recording to trim? Open MP3 cutter.
— Alok Kumar Singh