Here is a list of best free lightweight video editor software for Windows. As the title suggests, these are basically the video editors which are small in size (under 50 MB). Many of these video editors come in portable packages too which can be carried in flash devices and use on the go. Despite being light in weight, these don’t compromise with editing features. All of these provide a good number of tools to edit videos. You get a dedicated Timeline too which is used to make precise adjustments to videos. These software let you merge multiple media files to create a whole video.
In these video editors, you can trim videos, cut videos, split videos, mix videos, join videos, resize videos, crop videos, merge videos, zoom (in/out), rotate videos, stretch videos, change videos’ speed, etc. Also, you can insert text, add subtitles to videos, and create lyrical videos. These also provide various stunning video transition effects, video filters, audio effects, etc. to further enhance videos.
Almost all of these lightweight videos editors support popular video formats to import and export. These include MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, MPEG, MKV, ASF, FLV, OGG, 3GP, etc. video files.
My Favorite Lightweight Video Editor For Windows
VSDC Video Editor and Avidemux are my favorite lightweight video editor for Windows. These come in small sizes yet provide a feature rich set of tools to edit videos. Both of these provide portable versions too.
VSDC Video Editor
VSDC Video Editor is a nice free video editor which is lightweight as well. It provides both installer and portable versions. The portable version can be downloaded from here. It supports AVI, MOV, MP4, WMK, MKV, RM, SWF, FLV, etc. video formats to import and export videos. A dedicated timeline is provided to edit videos precisely or to create a video project with different media files.
It comes with various video editing as well as video annotation tools. For editing, you can trim, crop, rotate, and flip a video. It lets you add some beautiful visual effects to a video, change video layout style, add video filters (blur, sharpen, pixelate, noise, diffuse, emboss, oil paint, etc.), mirror a video, etc. Also, you can add some audio effects to a video, such as fade in/out, amplify, tempo change, etc. To annotate a video, it provides line, rectangle, ellipse, tooltip, chart, etc. tools. You can create a video object to add to the original video. It also lets you add subtitles to videos in SRT format.
To export an edited video, go to its Export Project tab and save the video in any of supported formats.
VSDC Video Editor is one of my favorite lightweight video editors. Apart from several editing options, it also provides the flexibility to add a video filter to a specific part of the video only.
Avidemux
Avidemux is a free lightweight video editor for Windows. It lets you edit MP4, MPEG, MKV, AVI, etc. video files. It comes in both installer and portable versions.
To edit a video in it, open the video, choose video output, and then click on Filters button to view various editing options. There are various filters which are divided into different categories which are as follows:
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- Transform: In this category, you can find options to crop videos, add border, add logo, blackout video parts, change FPS, flip videos, rotate videos, etc.
- Colors: From here, you can change video colors using options such as ChromaShift, Contrast, GreyScale, Hue and Saturation, etc.
- Noise: You can add noises to videos using filters including FluxSmooth, Gaussian convolution, Mean convolution, MPlayer Denoise 3D, etc.
- Sharpness: You can sharpen videos using different filters.
- Subtitles: It also lets you add subtitles to videos in SSA, ASS, and SRT formats
- Interlacing: This section includes options like Merge Fields, Stack Fields, Unstack Fields, Deinterlacers, etc.
You can also add audio filters to enhance sound quality such as change frame rate, adjust dB, remix audio, shift audio, etc. Some postprocessing options like horizontal deblocking, vertical deblocking, deringing, etc. can be set too. It lets you view real time preview of edited videos.
All in all, it is a nice, easy to use, lightweight video editor.
Easy Video Maker
Easy Video Maker is a lightweight video editor for Windows. It can be used to trim videos, cut videos, split videos, mix videos, join videos, resize videos, crop videos, merge videos, zoom (in/out), rotate videos, stretch videos, slow down or speed up videos, etc. Additionally, you can insert text and subtitles, create lyrical videos, change video shape and video color, etc. Several stunning video effects like shake by audio, mask effect, motion effect, transition effect, particles effect, Chroma key, PIP effect, etc. are also provided in it. Plus, you can create a whole project with multiple video, audio, and image files.
It provides a timeline using which you can edit videos and mix multimedia files to create a video project. To edit a video, you need to add a video and drag it to timeline. As simple as that. To import videos for editing, it supports AVI, MP4, MPEG, WMV, FLV, MKV, DivX, XviD, etc. formats. And, you can export edited videos in formats including MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, MPEG, MKV, ASF, FLV, OGG, 3GP, etc.
Note: This free edition of Easy Video Maker contains many limitations, such as maximum output video length is 5 minutes, 3D videos can’t be created in it, etc.
Windows Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker is a simple lightweight video editor for Windows. It is quite a popular software to edit videos. It comes with standard editing tools to enhance videos. You can edit a video individually or create a video project with video, audio, and pictures. To do so, it provides a dedicated timeline.
You can add various video effects including blur, increase/decrease brightness, ease in/out, fade in/out, rotate, sepia tone, slow down, smudge stick, threshold, watercolor, etc. Various transition effects like bars, circle, pixelate, reveal, rectangle, roll, keyhole, page curl, etc. can be added to make stunning videos. You can add titles and movie credits at the desired part of the video. In that way, you can create a lyrics video too.
To import a video to edit, it supports AVI, MPG, MPE, MPG, WMV, MPEG, ASF, etc. video formats. However, you can export edited video in WMV format only.
It is a good video editor and is highly recommended for the beginners.
XMedia Recode
XMedia Recode is basically a batch video converter software for Windows. It can also be used to edit videos as it comes with limited but necessary video editing options. You just need to add a video and move to its Filters/Preview tab to edit a video. From this tab, you can use various filters to edit videos and watch the real-time preview of edited video too. These include Box Blur, Clip Speed, Color Curves, Color Correction, Denoise, Flip, Rotate, Hue/Saturation, Noise, Painting Effect, Sharpness, Smart Blur, Vignette, Grayscale, Mirror, etc.
After applying filters, you can save the edited video in any of supported formats. These formats include MP4, MKV, FLV, 3GP, MPEG, MOV, etc.
You can batch edit multiple videos using it. Just add multiple videos, edit them one by one, add them to processing queue, and hit the Encode button to process them at once.
XMedia Recode is another nice alternative to a lightweight video editor.
VideoPad
VideoPad is another one of lightweight video editor for Windows. It is quite a feature rich video editing software with a good number of editing tools. These include options like Split, Trim, Merge, Change Clip Speed, Add Text, etc. You can find various kinds of video and audio effects in it, such as motion transforms, blending & color correction, filters, artistic, amplify, chorus, compressor, echo, etc. You can also add subtitles to videos and create lyrics videos using it. It also provides a Batch Video Editor tool which lets you edit multiple videos at once.
Like other software, it also supports popular video formats to import and export, such as ASF, AVI, FLV, MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, etc. Plus, it also supports some device-specific formats including iPhone, Android, PSP, XBox, etc. The edited video can also be shared directly on YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Dropbox, etc.
Note: It is free for private, non-commercial use only.
Vidiot
Vidiot is one more lightweight video editor for Windows. It comes in both installer and portable version. So, you can install it on your PC or use its portable version to run it on the go.
To edit a video using Vidiot, add a video and drag it to the timeline. If you want to create a whole video project of multiple media files, you can select a folder containing media files and then edit them using Timeline. It provides few selected editing options which include Trim, Speed, Opacity, Crop, Scaling, Rotation, Position, Volume, Balance, Video key frames, and Audio key frames. Use these options as per your requirements to edit a video.
It supports a good range of import and export videos which include MP4, 3GP, WebM, MPEG, AVI, MOV, etc.