AviDemux 2.8.2 2026.07.27

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 is genuinely best at, and it is why people keep it installed years after they stopped using it as an editor.

Download Avidemux 2.8.2 - free and open source, Windows, Mac and Linux.

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.

The Lossless Cut, Step by Step

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

1. Open your file with File, then Open. Avidemux loads it directly, with no import or project step.
2. On the left panel, set Video Output to Copy and Audio Output to Copy. This is the setting that makes the whole thing lossless.
3. Choose an Output Format that suits the codec inside the file. MP4 Muxer for H.264 and HEVC, MKV Muxer if you are not sure or the file has several audio tracks.
4. Move to where the keep should start and press the A marker, then move to the end and press B. Everything outside A and B is discarded when you save.
5. Save with File, then Save Video. On a long recording this 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 will open with a smeared or black opening second. That is the single most common complaint about this program, and it is not a bug.

Two ways round it. Use the keyframe navigation 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.

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, positive push it later. Preview, adjust, save in Copy mode, done.

The same panel handles replacing a track with an external file, deleting tracks you do not need, and remuxing to a container that your player likes better. If a file plays silently rather than out of sync, the problem is usually a missing decoder instead, and 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.
• Subtitle burn-in - permanently stamp SRT or ASS subtitles into the picture for a device that cannot display them separately.
• Audio filters - the 2.8 line added a three-band equaliser, a configurable compressor, per-channel gain and delay, channel remapping, and headphone downmix options, with support for 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 it is worth knowing before you wonder why a save is suddenly taking twenty minutes.

Where It Falls Short

No timeline, so joining several clips with transitions is awkward at best. No titles, no colour grading, 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 also stable in ordinary use and less so at the edges. Unusual files, broken recordings and very long sources can produce a crash, 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.

DaVinci Resolve sits at the other end: 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 there is no batch queue in the interface.

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 current build here is 2.8.2, dated 27 July 2026. The 2.8 line brought a HiDPI button set, quick filter access with Ctrl+F, and the audio work listed above.

Avidemux publishes frequent builds and the version string carries a date, so the number to compare is the date rather than the release name. The full changelog is here alongside the download.

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.