How to install VidCutter on Ubuntu 20.04

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Whether you want to split video in to smaller sections, cut and join the funniest bits of a video into a montage clip or trim a stalled start, you can do so with relative ease on Ubuntu with the help of a free video trimmer called VidCutter. VidCutter is a modern, simple to use open source video editor that does video trimming and merging, that’s all.

Since it doesn’t provide advanced features, it is fairly simple to use and that’s what makes it more useful for simple editing tasks of splitting or joining videos. It’s an cross platform application available for Linux, Microsoft Windows and macOS.

VidCutter allows you to rotate your video by 90, 180 and 270 degrees so you can turn portrait clips into landscape clips. You can also do the reverse. You can choose the output type you would like, as well as selecting the quality you want. VidCutter handles all video formats, so you can use video from virtually any device you want.

It’s built using Python and Qt5, and uses FFmpeg as its decoding and encoding backend. VidCutter works with a number of popular video formats, including AVI, MP4, MOV and FLV.

Table of Contents

Key Features of VidCutter

Free and Open source
Supports most of the common video formats such as: AVI, MP4, MPEG 1/2, WMV, MP3, MOV, 3GP, FLV etc
Trims and merges the videos, nothing more than that
Cross-platform app available for Linux, Windows and MacOS
Save project to continue setting up clips later
Simple interface

This article explains three methods of installing VidCutter on Ubuntu 20.04.

Choose the installation method that is most appropriate for your environment.

Method 1: Installing VidCutter as a Snap Package

The easiest way to install VidCutter on Ubuntu 20.04 is by using the snap packaging system.

A snap package is a type of universal Linux package that you can enjoy irrespective of the distro. Its an self-contained software packages that include the binary all dependencies needed to run the application.

All you need is the snap service pre-configured, In the case of Ubuntu 20.04, it comes with snap pre-installed.

If snapd package is not already installed then you can install it by running following command.

$ sudo apt install snapd

Note: Snap packages can be installed from either the command-line or via the Ubuntu Software application.

This is actually the Snap version of the VidCutter. It can be used on any Linux distribution that has Snap support.

Open your terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type the following command to install the VidCutter package.

$ sudo snap install vidcutter

At this step, you have successfully installed VidCutter on Ubuntu 20.04 system.

If you are not comfortable with the command line, open Ubuntu Software, search for “VidCutter” and install the application.

Type the following command to update VidCutter package.

$ sudo snap refresh vidcutter

Method 2: Installing VidCutter via PPA Repository

If you want to install the most recent version of VidCutter, you can use the PPA repository.

Personal Package Archives (PPA) are software repositories designed for Ubuntu users and are easier to install than other third-party repositories. PPAs are often used to distribute pre-release software so that it can be tested.

Step #1

First of all open the terminal from system application launcher and type the following command to add the VidCutter PPA to your system.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ozmartian/apps

Step #2

Then, execute the following commands to install VidCutter package on your Ubuntu system.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install qml-module-qtmultimedia vidcutter

Once installed, launch it from your system application menu.

Method 3: Installing VidCutter via AppImage

Before installation let’s understand what is AppImage.

What is AppImage?

We have .deb packages for Debian/Ubuntu based Linux distributions and .rpm for Fedora/SUSE based Linux distributions.

While these packages provide a convenient way of installing software to their respective distribution users, it is not the most convenient for the application developer.

The developers have to create multiple packages for multiple distributions. This is where AppImage comes into picture. AppImage is a universal software package format.

By packaging the software in AppImage, the developer provides just one file to rule them all. End user can use it in most modern Linux distributions.

Step #1

Click on following button to download the latest stable version of VidCutter AppImage executable file for Linux.

Download VidCutter AppImage

Step #2

The downloaded file name would be something like: VidCutter-6.0.5.1-x86_64.AppImage.

By default, the downloaded AppImage file won’t have the execution permission. You will have to change the permission on the file to make it executable and You don’t need root privilege to do that.

Now type the following command to make the AppImage executable.

$ chmod u+x VidCutter-6.0.5.1-x86_64.AppImage

Step #3

Once you have made the AppImage file executable, just double click on it to run it Or run the following command to install through terminal.

$ ./VidCutter-6.0.5.1-x86_64.AppImage

That’s It.

Starting VidCutter

VidCutter can be launched from the command line by typing vidcutter or In the Activities search bar type “VidCutter” and click on the icon.

VidCutter User Interface:

How to Uninstall VidCutter from Ubuntu 20.04

For some reason, If you want to uninstall VidCutter, refer following methods.

Method #1

If you have installed VidCutter via Snap type the following command:

$ sudo snap remove vidcutter

Method #2

If you have installed the VidCutter through PPA then uninstall it by following one of the below procedures.

Procedure #1

It’s most likely that you added the PPA using add-apt-repository command. You can use the same command to remove the PPA as well. Just give it --remove option in the command.

$ sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ozmartian/apps

Note: Use this procedure only if you need to remove the PPA and not the applications installed by it.

Procedure #2

You must have noticed that in the above procedure we only talked about deleting or removing a PPA. What about the applications installed using these PPAs? Will they be removed as a result of removing the PPA? The answer is NO.

So this is when ppa-purge comes in picture. It not only disables the PPA but also uninstalls all the programs installed by the PPA or revert them to original version provided by your distribution.

So type the following command to install the ppa-purge package and uninstall the VidCutter package.

$ sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ozmartian/apps

Method #3

If you have installed the application via AppImage:

Since the software is never installed, there is no need of uninstalling it. Just delete the associated VidCutter file and your software is removed from the system.

Conclusion

I hope that now you have a good understanding of How to install VidCutter on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa.

If anyone does have any questions about what we covered in this guide then feel free to ask in the comment section below and I will do my best to answer those.