QuickTime Player crashes editing video from Photos

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Lucas1948 Author

Level 1

126 points

QuickTime Player crashes editing video from Photos

I'm trying to remove a short stretch of video from a .mov file that's about 53 seconds long (60 MB). I opened the file in my Photos app on my MacBook Pro, then clicked Image —> Edit with QuickTime Player. In the QT Player, I clicked Cmd + E to bring the timeline. Next I moved the red line to the starting point of the part I want to remove. I then tapped Cmd + Y to set the start of the clip.

Next I moved the red line to the end of the dud portion and again tapped Cmd + Y. Immediately the app crashed, and I was again looking at the original video in Photos. This crash has happened repeatedly. Each time my Mac has let me know that it happened and that the incident will be reported to Apple. I've restarted my Mac and both Photos and the QTP, but nothing has made any difference. I hope someone here can suggest a fix.

I use a MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023) with the M2 Pro chip, 16 GB of memory, 500 GB of storage; macOS Tahoe 25.5.2.

MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 2023)

Posted on Jul 19, 2026 10:58 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 7

21,146 points

Jul 22, 2026 1:15 AM in response to Lucas1948

Lucas1948 wrote:

I opened the file in my Photos app on my MacBook Pro, then clicked Image —> Edit with QuickTime Player. In the QT Player, I clicked Cmd + E to bring the timeline. Next I moved the red line to the starting point of the part I want to remove. I then tapped Cmd + Y to set the start of the clip.

Next I moved the red line to the end of the dud portion and again tapped Cmd + Y. Immediately the app crashed

I can replicate that QuickTime Player crash with iPhone 16 Pro footage if I do it inside Photos.app. A more simple QuickTime Player > Edit > Trim... also fails when trying to save the trimmed movie.

Both workflows work if I export the original to some Finder folder via Photos > File > Export > Export Unmodified Original, and then do the edit. I guess you used just > Export which re-encodes the movie as a smaller file.

So this is a Photos issue which could be reported to so maybe Apple will fix it in some update/upgrade:

Product Feedback - Apple

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Answer 2

BenB

Level 6

13,654 points

Jul 21, 2026 6:17 AM in response to Lucas1948

Move that video file outside of Photos and try to open it in QTPlayer and trim it.

Does this happen with any other video files inside (or outside) of Photos?

Where did the video file originally come from? What codec is used?

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Answer 3

Lucas1948 Author

Level 1

126 points

Jul 21, 2026 1:23 PM in response to BenB

Thanks, BenB—your advice solved the problem! On your advice, I exported the video to my desktop at 720p. Then I opened the file with QuickTime and clipped out the part I didn't want. Everything went according to plan.

As for your other questions—I don't do this sort of thing very often (I'm not as aspiring Christopher Nolan), so I don't recall any similar situations.

I shot this video with my iPhone 16 Pro Max, so it went directly into my Photos app. Since I took the video with my iPhone (an Apple product), stored it and tried to edit it with Photos and QuickTime (both Apple products) on my MacBook Pro (another Apple product), it seemed reasonable to expect the operation to go smoothly. [Pardon the rant.]

I think I understand why your advice turned the trick. By exporting the original to my desktop, I decreased the file size, which made it easier for QuickTime to do the work I asked of it. The original weighs in at 64 MB! I suspect there's more to it than that, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this point.

Re: the codec—The info sheet for the exported file lists these codecs: "APAC, MPEG-4 AAC, Timed Metadata, HEVC." I'm a rank amateur at this sort of thing, and I have not a clue what any of that means. I rely on experts like you to keep me out of trouble! Thank you again!

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