Trimming a Recording
Cut the dead air off the start or end of a recording — Wave re-cuts the audio, transcript, and summary to match, and one tap undoes it.
Started recording a little early? Left it running after the meeting wrapped? Trim cuts extra audio off the beginning or end of a recording, then rebuilds the transcript and regenerates the summary from what's left — so the session reads as if the extra part was never there. Nothing is lost for good: one undo puts it all back.
Opening the trim editor
Open the recording and tap the speed button (1×) on the right side of the audio player at the bottom of the screen. In the menu that opens, tap Trim.
The mobile audio player — tap the 1× on the right.
The menu it opens, with playback speed, Trim, and Share Audio.
Making the cut
The editor works like the one in QuickTime or Voice Memos. You're selecting what to keep; everything outside the selection goes.
- Drag the handles at either end of the strip. The label underneath tracks the maths for you — for example, keeping 42:10 · removing 3:24.
- Preview plays only the part you're keeping, so you can check the edges before committing.
- Drag anywhere on the strip to move the playhead. On a long recording, scrub to the exact spot and tap Start here or End here to snap a handle to it.
When the selection looks right, tap the button at the bottom — it reads Trim to 42:10 (or whatever you're keeping). Wave then asks you to confirm: "Remove 3:24 of audio? The transcript and summary will be regenerated from the trimmed recording." Confirm with Trim recording on mobile and web, or Remove 3:24 of audio on desktop.
The session goes back into processing while Wave re-cuts the audio, rebuilds the transcript from the segments you kept, and writes a fresh summary. When it comes back, everything matches the shorter recording.
The selection is one continuous range, so you can cut from the start, the end, or both — but not a chunk out of the middle. Wave also needs at least a second of recording left over, and it rejects a trim that wouldn't actually remove anything.
Undoing a trim
Wave keeps a snapshot of the recording, transcript, and summary from just before each trim.
A Trimmed · Undo pill appears near the top of the session. Tap Undo, then confirm with Restore original recording. The same Undo last trim option is also at the bottom of the trim editor.
Trims stack, and each undo steps back exactly one — most recent first. Once you've undone a trim, that snapshot is gone, so the next undo (if there is one) takes you back a further step.
FAQ
Trim needs a plain audio recording that's finished processing. It doesn't appear on sessions recorded as video, on a session sitting in Recently Deleted, or while a session is still being transcribed or summarized — and on iPhone and Android it's hidden for podcast imports too. Wait for processing to finish and check again.
Yes. A published public link serves the trimmed audio and the updated summary. Exports and emails you already sent are unaffected — re-export if you want the trimmed version.
No. The summary is regenerated from the trimmed transcript, so hand-edits made in summary editing are replaced. Trim first, then edit.
Yes. Trim is available on every plan.
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