Question 1

How do I cut an MP3 to make a ringtone?

Accepted Answer

Upload the song or recording, set the start and end of the part you want (phone ringtones live happily at 15 to 30 seconds), add a one or two second fade-out so it does not stop dead, and download the cut as an MP3. Most phones accept an MP3 ringtone directly through their sound settings; iPhones need the file routed through GarageBand or a computer sync, which is Apple's restriction, not the file's fault.

Question 2

Why add fades to a cut?

Accepted Answer

A hard cut mid-sound clicks and feels broken because the waveform is sliced at a random height. A fade-in of even half a second makes the clip feel intentional, and a fade-out is what separates a ringtone that ends gracefully from one that sounds like the call dropped. Podcast excerpts, samples and notification sounds all benefit from the same two-second polish.

Question 3

Is the cut exact, or approximate?

Accepted Answer

Exact. This cutter re-encodes just the section you select, so the start and end land where you set them to the fraction of a second, rather than snapping to MP3 frame boundaries the way stream-copy cutting does. The cost is a few seconds of processing; the quality setting used is high enough that listeners will not hear a difference from the source.

Question 4

Which audio formats can I cut?

Accepted Answer

MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, FLAC and Opus: anything FFmpeg reads, which covers recordings from phones, voice recorders and DAW exports. The output is always a fresh MP3, the most universally playable format for ringtones and sharing. If you need the cut in another format afterwards, the audio format converter here handles that in one more step.

Question 5

Is my audio uploaded anywhere?

Accepted Answer

No. The cutting happens with FFmpeg inside your browser. Your songs, voice notes and recordings are read from your device, trimmed on your device, and saved back to your device. For voice notes and personal recordings especially, that is the only sensible architecture.

MP3 Cutter

Use MP3 Cutter

How to use the MP3 Cutter

Add the audio

Mark the section

Add fades (optional)

Download the cut

About the MP3 Cutter

MP3 Cutter FAQs