Trim voice recordings in Windows 10

Many Windows 10 users find the built-in Voice Recorder app is difficult to use because the control buttons are not well labeled, such as the the Stop and Record button, the recording trim button, etc. If you have trouble figuring what the buttons are about, you can refer to this guide to record sound on Windows 10 computer for the details.

Since Windows has removed the recording time limit since Vista, you can now record very long sounds or audios. One problem comes after this is the bigger file size for the recordings. Your recording files may be too big for sharing via email and you may like to split the recordings for easier transfer via email or other tools. Today, we will show you how to use the trimmer to cut or split long voice recordings in the sound recorder app in Windows 10. No extra audio editor required.

Launch Voice Recorder for Windows 10. By default your latest recording opens on the right side, the list of all existing recordings on the left. See below figure.

Find and click the sound recording file, you can then click the Play button to make sure this is the recording you like to split. Click the Trim icon at the bottom to show the two markers, a start marker and an end marker, in the timeline. Play the sound recording and click the Pause button when it has reached the point you like to set as the start point, drag the start marker there, then set the end point and drag the end marker in the same way.Click the Check icon to confirm the selection of the audio fragment, you will get two options “Update original” and “Save a copy“. The first option is to edit the original sound recording file directly and the edited recording file will replace the source recording file. The second option is to save the trimmed audio file as a new one without deleting the source voice recording file. We recommend you to trim and save the recording as a new file. Once the sound recording has been split, you can find it at the top of the recording list on the left and opens at the right panel. You can right click the new recording file on the left panel, and then choose to share the recording file, delete it, rename it or open it in Windows File Explorer.

Trim Sound recordings in Windows 11

If you have upgraded to the latest Windows 11, you may find the missing trimming tool in the stock Sound Recorder app. We hope Microsoft can add this feature back in future upgrades. For now, we need to use a third-party audio software in order to trim audios, music or sound recordings in Windows 11. Here we recommend Audacity, a free and open-source audio editor. You can follow these steps to trim audios, sound recordings on Windows PC, including Windows 11, 10 or earlier versions.