How to split a long video into parts for TikTok, Reels and Stories

Start from the app you're posting to. Its limit decides whether you need parts at all, and how long they can be:

So TikTok rarely makes you split: it takes up to an hour. People split for TikTok for the other reason, because short parts are what people finish. Reels and Shorts are where a long video has to become parts (or clips) to be recommended at all. For how long a short video should run, see how long a short video should be, and for the frame size, video sizes for TikTok, Reels and Shorts.

Splitting every 60 seconds is quick, but the clock doesn't know where your sentences end. A few minutes of planning makes every part watchable:

• Cut where a thought ends. The end of a sentence, a step or a scene, even if it makes one part 50 seconds and the next 70. A part that stops mid-word feels broken.
• End on a reason to keep watching. The turn in the story, the question before the answer, the step before the result.
• Open each part with where we are. One line of text on screen (“Part 2: what happened at the border”) lets someone who lands on part 2 follow it.
• Use as few parts as the story needs. A 4-minute story makes 4 parts of 60 seconds. Every extra part is another place for someone to stop.

Watch the video once and note the time of each natural break. Those times are your cut points, whichever tool you split it with.

In CapCut (iPhone and Android), on its timeline:

1. Start a new project and add the video.
2. Tap the clip, move the playhead to your first cut point, and tap Split.
3. Move to the next cut point and split again, until every part is its own piece.
4. Export one part at a time: CapCut exports what's on the timeline as one video, so keep only the part you want, tap Export, then go back for the next.

CapCut also crops to 9:16 and adds captions; the steps are in how to make clips in CapCut. In iMovie on an iPhone or iPad, the same move is tap the clip, tap the actions button, then Split.

In the Photos app, with nothing to install. Apple's and Google's help pages describe trimming rather than splitting, but both apps can save a trimmed copy and keep the original, so you make one copy per part:

• iPhone: open the video, tap Edit, drag the sliders to the start and end of part 1, tap Done, then Save Video as New Clip. Apple says that keeps the original and saves the trimmed version beside it. Repeat for each part.
• Android, in Google Photos: open the video, touch and hold the trim handles and drag them over part 1, then tap Save at the top. Google says this saves a copy with your edits. Repeat for each part.

Photos keeps the original shape and adds no numbers, so a wide video stays wide. For 9:16 parts with “Part 1” on them, use an editor or the splitter below.

Instagram does this one for you. When you share a video of up to 60 seconds to your story, it's one clip; a longer video is broken up into back-to-back clips, so the whole thing plays. Instagram's page adds that the video trimmer at the bottom, for editing those clips, is currently only on iOS.

1. Tap Create at the top (or swipe right from your feed) and choose Story.
2. Swipe up to pick the video from your camera roll.
3. Check the clips it was split into, add text or stickers, and tap Your Story.

Split it yourself first when you want control:

• To choose the breaks. Instagram splits by the clock, so a sentence can run across two story clips. Cut it at your own break points, each under 60 seconds, and share the parts in order.
• To keep it. Stories disappear after 24 hours. Add the parts to a Highlight, and they stay on your profile until you remove them.

The free video splitter does a whole video in one go, in your browser, without uploading it:

1. Choose the video (MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV).
2. Pick how to split it: every 15, 30, 60, 90 or 180 seconds or any length you type, into 2 to 20 equal parts, or at the places you mark while it plays (your break points).
3. Pick the shape. As it is copies each part without re-encoding, at the original's quality; 9:16 crop fills a phone's screen; 9:16 fit shows the whole picture on a blurred copy of itself. Tick numbering to put “Part 1/4” at the top of each.
4. Split, check each part, and download them one by one or all at once in a ZIP.

It makes up to 100 parts at a time from a video of any length. Parts made 9:16 or numbered are redrawn, so they come from up to 30 minutes of video at a time.

In an editor, each one splits at the playhead: CapCut on desktop with its Split button (and right-click, Split scenes, to cut at changes of shot, which on a single camera pointed at a conversation won't follow what's said), iMovie on a Mac with Modify, then Split Clip, or Command-B, and Clipchamp on Windows with the scissors button or the S key. An editor exports the timeline as one video, though, so each part is its own export. To go the other way and join parts or clips, see how to merge videos.

A viewer who likes part 2 should be able to find part 1, and the other way round. Label every part, and connect them:

• On screen: “Part 2/4” near the top, where the app's buttons don't cover it. The splitter's numbering puts it there.
• In the caption: the part number and what it's about, in the first words: “Part 2 of 4: the border”.
• On Instagram: link the reels into a series. TechCrunch reported in August 2025 that Instagram lets creators link reels when they add the caption, or from the menu of a reel already shared, and viewers get a button in the bottom-left corner to the next one. Instagram also lets you pin up to 3 of your posts to the top of your profile (Options, then Pin to main grid): pin part 1.
• On TikTok: put the parts in a playlist if your account has one. TikTok's support page describes playlists, made in TikTok Studio, as a way to sort your public videos so viewers can watch them in order.
• On YouTube: save the Shorts to a playlist (More, then Save), and set each Short's related video to the next part, as in how to link a YouTube Short to a video.

Post part 1 first and the rest soon after, so the next part is there when someone goes looking. Lining the parts up in each app is in how to schedule TikToks, Reels and Shorts.

It's the most common complaint about posting in parts, and it follows from how the apps recommend videos. Each one judges every video on its own, by how the people shown it react:

• TikTok counts whether a viewer finishes a longer video from beginning to end as a strong signal.
• Instagram predicts how likely you are to watch a reel all the way through, like it or reshare it.
• YouTube ranks Shorts by how many viewers chose to watch, how long they watched and how much of it they saw.

Part 1 has a beginning, so the strangers it's shown to can follow it. Part 2 is shown to strangers too, and for most of them it starts in the middle of something they never saw. They swipe, and that tells the app part 2 isn't worth showing. The people who reach part 2 from part 1 are the few who went looking. And parts cut by the clock often end mid-sentence, which gives a viewer a reason to stop, not to look for the next.

None of the apps publishes how series of parts perform, so check your own: compare each part's views and average watch time in the app's analytics. If part 2 holds people well but few find it, the linking is the problem; if it loses them in its first seconds, the cut is. What is a good retention rate says how to read those numbers.

For a story told in order, or a lesson in steps, parts can be the right call. For a podcast, a stream, an interview or a webinar, they usually aren't: the good moments are scattered through an hour, and cutting by the clock spreads them across parts and buries them between the slow stretches. Clips flip that. Each one is a single moment that makes sense alone, from the line that hooks to its payoff, so every clip can find its own viewers, whatever order they see them in.

To find those moments yourself, the free video highlight finder marks where a video gets loud (the laughs, the raised voices) without uploading it, and how to find the best moments to clip covers the rest. Planning a week of them from one recording is in how to repurpose video content.

Or let Clyper do it. Paste a YouTube link or upload the video (up to 4 hours), and it reads the transcript, picks the moments that stand on their own, cuts each on whole sentences, frames it 9:16 on whoever's talking and captions every word. On Auto you get about 10 clips from an hour; ask for more and you can have up to 30 from one video. Pro and Studio add a hook headline on every clip. For an episode, see podcast clips with Clyper.