Fade video in and out

How it works

1. 1

   Add your video

   Drop in the clip you want to open and close smoothly.

2. 2

   Set the fades

   Pick a fade-in and fade-out length, from half a second to five seconds. The strip shows where they land.

3. 3

   Download

   Save the MP4 with smooth fades.

A fade is two fades, and forgetting the second one is obvious

Fading a video to black is a change to the picture. The soundtrack knows nothing about it, and if you leave the audio alone it will run at full volume right up to the final frame and then stop dead. The result is unmistakable: the image dissolves gracefully into black while the sound is guillotined, and it sounds like a mistake because it is one.

A fade out is therefore always two operations performed together, one on the picture and one on the audio, and they should share a duration so the image and the sound arrive at nothing at the same moment. The same is true in reverse at the start of a clip, where audio rising from silence alongside the picture is the difference between an opening and an abrupt beginning.

Length is a matter of intent, not taste. Half a second reads as punctuation and is right for the end of a short social clip. One to two seconds reads as an ending and suits the close of a longer piece. Anything beyond about three seconds starts to feel like the video is reluctant to finish, and viewers will click away during it rather than watch it out.

Add fade in and fade out with no upload and no watermark

Both fades, on both the picture and the sound, are rendered on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, there is no cap on the length of the video, and the file that downloads carries no watermark.

The fades are burned into the video itself rather than applied by a player, so they survive being posted, re-encoded, and passed around, which is the only way a fade is any use.

Trim the clip to its final length before fading, since a fade applied to footage you later cut into will end up somewhere in the middle of the video looking like a mistake.

Why nothing uploads

Other tools send your video to their servers, which costs them money per file, so they add watermarks, cap file sizes, and make you sign up. This tool does the work right here in your browser using your own device. Your file is never uploaded, so there is no wait, no watermark, no size limit, and no account.

Questions

Does the audio fade too?

Yes. The sound fades in and out in sync with the picture automatically, so there's no abrupt audio cut.

Can I fade only the beginning or only the end?

Yes. Set either fade to "Off" and only the other is applied.

What fade length looks good?

One second suits most clips. Use half a second for something snappy, two or more for a slow cinematic close.

Does my video get uploaded?

No. The fades are rendered in your browser; your file never leaves your device.

Is there a watermark?

No. The only thing added to the video is the fade you asked for. There is no watermark, no signup, and no cap on the length of the clip.

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