Audio Cutter is a free browser-based trim tool that runs on any PC without installing an application, codec pack, or browser extension. It loads a local audio file, asks the browser's Web Audio engine to decode it into an in-memory working buffer, lets you enter a start time and an end time in seconds, and exports a freshly encoded PCM16 WAV that you can download to your computer. The source file, the decoded buffer, and the final WAV are all handled inside the current tab — nothing is sent to a remote server. This makes Audio Cutter a practical choice for anyone who needs to remove an intro, crop a podcast ringing sound, or split off a voicemail clip on a Windows machine where installing new software is restricted, blocked, or simply not necessary. Because decoding depends on the browser rather than a bundled codec library, the same tool works with MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, Ogg, WebM, and FLAC on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, with the small container and codec variations covered further down this page.
What Audio Cutter Does on a Windows PC
Audio Cutter is a single-purpose trim editor that runs entirely inside the browser tab. You pick a file from local storage, the page asks the browser to decode it into an in-memory working buffer inside the Audio Cutter tool, and then you enter a start time and an end time in moments. The tool rounds those times to the nearest sample-frame boundary at the decoded rate, copies the frames in between, and writes a fresh WAV. Because no extension, .exe, .msi, or codec pack is installed, the tool works on locked-down laptops, school machines, borrowed PCs, and clean installs alike.
Two design choices shape every cut. First, the output is always a freshly encoded PCM16 WAV, so the resulting file does not retain the source's MP3, AAC, Vorbis, Opus, or FLAC encoding — nor any tag, cover art, cue, chapter, loudness, or encoder setting. Second, the cut covers exactly one continuous range from start to end. The page lets you preview the result as a temporary local URL before you save it, then download a new file that you can rename or move anywhere on disk.
Formats the Browser Can Decode
The file picker recognizes common extensions and MIME types for MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, Ogg, WebM, and FLAC. Recognition is not the same as decoding: actual playback depends on the audio codecs the current browser ships with. Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge each support a slightly different set, and operating-system or browser-version differences can occasionally block a specific file even when the extension matches. An unsupported, encrypted, damaged, or mislabeled file produces a clear decode error in the page rather than a silent fallback or upload.
| Format | Recognized by picker | Decoded by mainstream browsers |
|---|---|---|
| MP3 | Yes | Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari |
| WAV (PCM) | Yes | All major browsers |
| M4A / AAC | Yes | Safari and recent Chromium versions |
| Ogg (Vorbis/Opus) | Yes | Firefox and Chromium; limited on Safari |
| WebM (Opus) | Yes | Chromium and Firefox |
| FLAC | Yes | Firefox, Safari, and recent Chromium builds |
If a container does not decode in your current browser, you can transcode the file once with an offline tool and come back to Audio Cutter for the actual trimming step.
Cut a Range From an Audio File
- Open the Audio Cutter page and click the file picker to choose a local audio file up to 25 MB.
- Wait while the browser decodes the file into a working buffer. The page displays the decoded duration, sample rate, channel count, and frame count.
- Type the start time almost instantly. The value cannot be negative or at the very end of the clip.
- Type the end time in moments. It must be greater than the start and no greater than the exact decoded duration that the page shows.
- Choose the cut action to create a WAV preview. The embedded player uses a temporary local URL, so the file is not uploaded.
- Listen and confirm the spoken words or musical transient at both boundaries.
- Select the download option to save the freshly encoded PCM16 WAV file to your PC.
The start frame is included and the end frame is excluded. Times are rounded to the nearest sample at the decoded rate, which is described in the MDN AudioBuffer reference as the sample rate Web Audio assigns to the in-memory buffer. If a selection rounds to less than one frame, the page rejects the cut instead of producing an empty file. Changing either time field clears the previous WAV, and cutting again replaces and releases the prior download URL.
Why the Downloaded WAV Is Always Uncompressed
The downloaded file is a standard RIFF/WAVE container with a 44-byte header and interleaved, little-endian, signed 16-bit PCM samples in the original channel order. Web Audio stores decoded channels as Float32, and the exporter clamps each value to -1 through 1, then maps -1 to -32768, maps +1 to 32767, and treats any non-finite value as silence. As a result, the file has no MP3, AAC, Ogg, FLAC, or Opus frame structure, no metadata tags, and no cover art — it is a brand-new PCM stream with only the audio bytes the page shows in its size estimate.
Because PCM is uncompressed, a short MP3 or AAC source can produce a noticeably larger WAV. A useful worked example: cut a 10-second stereo excerpt from a file decoded at 44,100 Hz.
- Frames = 10 s × 44,100 = 441,000 frames
- Bytes per stereo sample = 2 channels × 2 bytes = 4 bytes
- Data size = 441,000 × 4 = 1,764,000 bytes
- Total file size = 1,764,000 + 44 (header) = 1,764,044 bytes ≈ 1.68 MB
The page reports the output duration and the exact file size before you click download, so you can decide whether the WAV size matches your project. If you need a smaller result, run the WAV through a separate MP3 or AAC encoder offline.
Limits That Can Stop a Cut
Audio Cutter enforces explicit limits instead of silently failing. The encoded input file must be no larger than 25 MB. After decoding, the audio must be no longer than 15 minutes, must use no more than eight channels, must not exceed 192 kHz, and must contain no more than 30 million channel-samples in total. None of these limits are stretched automatically — an over-limit file is rejected with a clear message rather than truncated.
| Limit | Maximum | What happens if exceeded |
|---|---|---|
| Encoded source file size | 25 MB | Page rejects the file before decoding. |
| Decoded duration | 15 minutes | Page rejects the decoded buffer. |
| Channel count | 8 channels | Page rejects the decoded buffer. |
| Decoded sample rate | 192 kHz | Page rejects the decoded buffer. |
| Total channel-samples | 30,000,000 | Page rejects the decoded buffer. |
The sample limit means a high-rate or multichannel file can reach the boundary before the duration limit does. Decoding necessarily happens before duration and sample count can be inspected, so a long, highly compressed file may still consume temporary memory during the decode attempt even if it is ultimately rejected. Web Audio may also resample the source to the AudioContext sample rate while decoding, so the sample rate the page displays describes the decoded working buffer and the exported WAV, not necessarily the source file's encoded rate.
Tips and Edge Cases for PC Users
On Windows, the safest workflow is to keep the original file in place and not rely on the tool to preserve tags, encoder settings, or other metadata — they are dropped on purpose. For dependable work, preview the cut WAV, confirm the spoken words or musical transient at both boundaries, and switch to a dedicated editor when you need waveform-level fades, lossless compressed-frame cutting, metadata preservation, or production mastering.
If the page shows a decode error, try a different browser before assuming the file is corrupt. If a file clears the 15-minute mark, slice it first with another free tool and return to Audio Cutter for the precise trim. When you replace the file or the selection, the previous players, errors, decoded buffer, and download URL are released on the spot — older jobs cannot overwrite a newer one in flight, so it is safe to start a fresh cut without waiting for prior reads to settle. Audio contexts are also closed after decoding and during cleanup, which keeps the tab tidy across multiple sessions.
When to Pick Audio Cutter Over an Installed Program
For a single trim on a restricted or borrowed PC, a browser-based tool removes the install question entirely. Audio Cutter is also a good fit when you specifically want an uncompressed PCM16 WAV as the deliverable, because every download is encoded from the same frame-range function the page previews, with the start frame included and the end frame excluded. If your workflow needs target resampling, a remix, normalization, fades, noise reduction, or pitch changes, reach for a dedicated editor instead — Audio Cutter is intentionally limited to one continuous cut, and none of those controls are exposed.