Best YouTube clip cutters in 2026: 6 tools compared

Since YouTube dropped its own Clip button in April 2026 (what changed), saving a moment from a YouTube video takes a third-party tool. On the surface they all do the same thing — paste a link, pick a range, download. The differences are in the small print: how long a free clip can be, the best quality, and whether there's a watermark.

At a glance

Clip Cutter: free with no catch on length

Paste a YouTube link — a watch link, youtu.be, a Short or a finished live stream — set in and out to the frame, and download an MP4 at up to 1080p or an MP3. There's no account and no cap on clip length: only the part you picked is fetched, so a short clip from a long stream is still quick. It also trims files from your computer without uploading them, and takes links from TikTok, Instagram, X and other sites.

The catch: no 4K, and nothing beyond the cut — for captions or a vertical crop you'll need an editor afterwards.

SliceYT and SliceTube: simple cutters with a paid 4K tier

Two different sites with near-identical names, and both work like ours: link in, range, download, no watermark. SliceYT gives free clips up to 2 minutes at up to 1080p; Pro adds 4K, MOV and clips up to 30 minutes in 1080p. SliceTube sells time passes — $5 for a month, $15 for six months, $25 for a year — for 4K, and says its free tier has quality limits without listing them.

The catch: free clips are capped, and for anything long you're paying either way.

YT Clipper: a desktop app, paid once

YT Clipper runs on your computer (an 80 MB download) and pulls just the segment you mark. Free gets 360p–720p with no watermark; Lifetime adds 4K, GIFs, audio, SRT captions and batches of up to 10 clips for a one-time £25 early-bird price (£39 list).

The catch: it's software to install and keep updated, and the free tier stops at 720p.

Flixier and Kapwing: clip inside a full editor

Flixier ↗ imports a YouTube link straight onto its timeline, so you can crop, caption and resize in the same tab. The free plan exports 10 minutes a month at 720p with a Flixier watermark; Starter, $19 per seat a month, removes it and goes to 1080p.

Kapwing ↗ stopped taking YouTube links on its free plan in March 2025, citing YouTube's limits on downloads. Pro costs $16 per member a month billed yearly ($24 monthly) — a good editor for teams, but a costly way to cut one clip.

Which one to pick

• Just the moment, free: Clip Cutter.
• 4K clips every week: a SliceTube ↗ pass or SliceYT ↗ Pro.
• 4K now and then, pay once: YT Clipper ↗ Lifetime — or yt-dlp for free if you're happy in a terminal (how).
• Captions, crops, vertical video: Flixier ↗, or cut here for free and finish in CapCut ↗.