How to Trim the First and Last 2 Seconds of an MP4 Video Using ffmpeg on Linux

To trim the video, it provides a command:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 2 -t $(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 input.mp4 | awk '{print $1 - 4}') -c copy output.mp4

Here's a breakdown:

• -i input.mp4: Specifies the input file.
• -ss 2: Trims starting from 2 seconds into the video.
• -t $(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 input.mp4 | awk '{print $1 - 4}'): Specifies the duration to trim. It uses ffprobe to determine the video's duration and subtracts 4 seconds (2 from the start and 2 from the end) using awk.
• -c copy: Copies video and audio codecs without re-encoding to preserve original quality and speed up the process.
• output.mp4: Specifies the output file.

Trim a video inbetween certain timestamps. For example trim a video called twentytwoseconds.mp4 which is 22 seconds long and you want to cut off the first 5 seconds and the last 3 seconds:

ffmpeg -i twnty.mp4 -ss 00:00:05 -to 00:00:22 -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4

• -i twnty.mp4: Specifies the input file.
• -ss 00:00:05: Specifies the start time to trim.
• -to 00:00:22: Specifies the end time to trim.
• -c:v copy -c:a copy: Copies video and audio codecs without re-encoding to preserve original quality and speed up the process.
• output.mp4: Specifies the output file.

Leaving you with a video that is 14 seconds long.

To create a blank mp4 file to test this with you can run

 
ffmpeg -f lavfi -i color=c=black:s=1280x720:r=30:d=22 -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -tune stillimage -pix_fmt yuv420p twentytwo.mp4

where d=22 is the duration of the video in seconds. twntytwo.mp4 is the filename 1280x720 is the resolution of the video