AviDemux 2.8.2 nightly build

Avidemux cuts a piece out of a video and saves it without re-encoding, which takes seconds and costs no quality.

That is the job it does best, and it is why people keep it installed long after they move to a bigger editor.

It is free and open source, with no account, no ads and no paid tier.

What Avidemux Is For

Single-file work. Trim the start and end of a recording, drop the adverts out of the middle, fix audio that runs ahead of the picture, burn in subtitles, or convert one file to another format.

It opens AVI, MP4, MKV, MPEG, TS and most other containers, and it writes AVI, MP4, MKV, MPEG and WebM. Encoders on board include x264 and x265, so the output is standard H.264 or HEVC that plays anywhere.

What it is not is a timeline editor. There is one video stream, no track stack, no transitions and no titles, which is exactly why it starts instantly and never asks you to create a project.

Which Build to Download

The last official release is 2.8.1, from September 2022. Since then the developers have published dated nightly builds under the 2.8.2 name, and the Avidemux download page carries both.

Nightlies are built straight from the developers' code, so they get fixes years sooner but have had less testing. Keep the portable zip next to an installed copy if you want an easy way back.

The Lossless Cut, Step by Step

This is the feature worth learning, and it takes about a minute.

• Open your file with File, then Open. Avidemux loads it directly, with no import or project step.
• On the left panel, set Video Output to Copy and Audio Output to Copy. This is the setting that makes the whole thing lossless.
• Choose an Output Format that suits the codec inside the file: MP4 Muxer for H.264 and HEVC, or MKV Muxer if you are not sure or the file has several audio tracks.
• Move to where the part you want to keep starts and press the A marker, then move to its end and press B. Everything outside A and B is dropped when you save.
• Save with File, then Save Video. Even a long recording finishes in seconds, because nothing is being re-compressed.

To delete a section instead of keeping one, set A and B around the part you do not want and press Delete, then save.

Why Your Cut Landed in the Wrong Place

In Copy mode Avidemux can only cut on keyframes, the full pictures that compressed video stores every few seconds. Everything between them is built from those keyframes, so a cut anywhere else has nothing to start from.

If your A marker is not on a keyframe you will see a warning, or the finished file opens with a smeared or black first second. It is the most common complaint about Avidemux, and it is not a bug.

There are two ways round it. Use the keyframe buttons under the preview to snap the markers to the nearest keyframe, and accept a difference of a second or so.

Or, when the cut has to be frame-exact, set Video Output to x264 or x265 instead of Copy. You lose the speed and a little quality, and you gain a cut exactly where you asked for it.

If keyframe cutting is all you need, LosslessCut does that one job with a simpler, more modern interface.

Fixing Audio That Does Not Line Up

Avidemux has been the quiet fix for out-of-sync recordings for twenty years, and it is still one of the fastest ways to do it.

Open Audio, then Select Track, and set a shift in milliseconds. Negative values pull the audio earlier and positive values push it later, so preview, adjust and save in Copy mode.

The same panel replaces a track with an external file, deletes tracks you do not need, and lets you remux into a container your player likes better.

If a file plays silently rather than out of sync, the problem is usually a missing decoder instead. Our AC3 and DTS audio guide covers that.

Filters Worth Knowing

• Crop and resize. Remove black bars, or scale a file down for a device or an upload.
• Deinterlace. The fix for combing lines on anything captured from TV or an older camera.
• Rotate and flip. For phone footage that came in sideways, plus free-angle rotation since 2.8.1.
• Subtitle burn-in. Permanently stamp SRT or ASS subtitles into the picture for a device that cannot show them separately.
• HDR and colour. HDR-to-SDR tone mapping and a 3D LUT filter for applying a colour look.
• Audio. A three-band equaliser, a compressor, per-channel gain and delay, channel remapping, headphone downmixes and up to 32 audio tracks.

Filters need re-encoding, so Copy mode is off the table whenever you use one. That is a fair trade, but worth knowing before you wonder why a save suddenly takes twenty minutes.

If a subtitle file needs retiming before you burn it in, fix it first in Subtitle Edit.

Where It Falls Short

No timeline, so joining several clips with transitions is awkward at best. No titles, no colour grading and no multi-track audio mixing.

The interface is functional rather than friendly, and the documentation is thin. Most of what people know about Avidemux was learned from forum posts.

It is stable in ordinary use and less so at the edges. Unusual files, broken recordings and very long sources can crash it, so save your work before experimenting.

What to Use Instead

For real editing, meaning several clips, transitions and titles, use a proper editor. Shotcut is the easiest free step up, and OpenShot is friendlier still.

Kdenlive suits longer projects, and DaVinci Resolve is professional software with a free tier and a much steeper climb.

For the same technical work with more control, VirtualDub2 is the closest sibling, with frame-accurate cutting and filter chains.

For batch conversion, HandBrake has a proper queue and better presets. Avidemux can automate through its command line and project scripts, but the interface has no batch queue.

For container work with no re-encoding at all, MKVToolNix handles MKV muxing, track selection and chapters better than anything else.

FFmpeg does all of the above from a command line, and AviSynth+ is the scripting route for heavy filtering.

The rest of the category is in our video editors section.

What Is New

The newest build here is the 2.8.2 nightly from 9 October 2026. Nightlies carry a date in the file name, so compare the date rather than the version number.

The last stable release, 2.8.1, added the HiDPI buttons, quick filter search with Ctrl+F, light and dark themes, the audio tools listed above, and hardware VP9 decoding on Windows. The 2.8.1 changelog has the full list.

Quick questions

Download Avidemux 2.8.2 and see how it handles your files, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.