Best 8 Free AVI Video Editors for Windows and Mac in 2024

Summary: Looking for AVI video editors? What is the best AVI editor? Is there free and easy-to-use AVI video editor on Windows 10/11 or Mac? Is AVI good for editing? How to edit AVI files? Read this post and you can find the answers.

Most free video editing programs support the AVI format. The problem is that the AVI files might come with HEVC, H.264, VP9, DivX, Xvid, and a few other compression codecs which might be incompatible with the using video editing software. This makes sense why many video editors claim to be able to edit AVI files but most of them crash as soon as you just import a short AVI clip.

Thankfully, we've compiled a top 8 list of the best free AVI video editors for you to check. That's right - with these free AVI editors, you can edit your AVI video files encoded in a variety of codecs on Windows 10/11 or Mac without hassles.

Top 8 Best AVI Editors

1. VideoProc Converter AI
2. Shotcut
3. VideoProc Vlogger
4. Handbrake
5. Avidemux
6. Lightworks
7. Wax Video Editor
8. Windows Photos

VideoProc Converter AI

VideoProc Converter AI supports 370+ popular and rare codec and container formats, including AVI, H.264, HEVC, VP8, VP9, Xvid, and DivX. It contains a batch of useful editing features, such as trim, rotate, flip, merge, crop, deshake, de-fisheye, and watermark.

Efficient is something that is taken seriously by VideoProc Converter AI. The tested data shows it can edit and export hour-long 4K AVI files in just minutes. Moreover, this powerful AVI editor presents 100+ output profiles for prevalent devices and platforms, allowing you to save the edited AVI videos with the best properties settings for viewing them on YouTube, Facebook, and mobile… with the best viewing experience.

Pros:

• 0 Learning curve. Edit 4K large AVI files smoothly with low CPU usage.
• Easy editing tools: trim, cut, rotate, merge, crop, effects, chroma key, denoise…
• Quickly edit metadata of AVI files: art cover, genre, name, and more.
• Edit AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, H.264, HEVC, VP9, and the other 370+ formats.
• Loads of extra features: convert, compress, download, and record videos.

Cons:

• It's a linear video editing program.

Shotcut

Shotcut is the third open-source video editor that you can utilize to edit AVI files on Windows, Mac, and Linux. With an extensive list of capabilities, it is one of the more versatile programs in this wrap-up. Shotcut has everything from basic toolkits like cutting, trimming, rotating to advanced effects including chroma key, blurring filter, overlays and more. However, more features often imply a steeper learning curve for most video editing software. Shotcut is not an exception. You have to read many tutorials to discoverer all its potentials.

Pros:

• Rich features for creative users.
• Low hardware requirement and enable hardware acceleration.
• Supports the input and output of 4K HD videos in AVI, MP4, DNXHD, and all other standard formats.

Cons:

• No preset output properties for iPhone, YouTube, and TVs, etc.
• Put transition for beginners is very challenging.
• Not support to select multiple clips on the timeline.
• Doesn't allow you to add subtitles files.

VideoProc Vlogger

As an all-in-one software, VideoProc Vlogger covers all basic editing toolkits to polish AVI videos and all kinds of other popular footage, and audio. Efficient is something that is taken seriously by VideoProc. The tested data shows it can edit and export hour-long 4K AVI videos in just minutes. That's own to its support of level-3 GPU acceleration. Plus, the wide range of output formats allow us to generate videos with the most proper codec settings. So that we can easily get the best viewing experience on phones, computers, TVs and various social platforms.

Pros:

• A lot of AVI video editing tools: cut, trim, merge, add music, add subtitles, add watermarks, and more.
• Besides, it provides you full features to edit your MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, FLV, WMV videos.
• Fast AVI video editing and processing speed thanks to the support of level-3 hardware acceleration technology.
• Works well on both Windows and Mac computer, and its simple interface makes it super easy for beginners.

Cons:

• Not support motion track.

Free download and install VideoProc Vlogger on your PC or Mac to find more useful features to edit your AVI files.

Handbrake

Basically, Handbrake is a video transcoder that is very good being a freeware. But as a AVI editor, it lacks important functions like video merging and multi trim. Its UI looks too bulky as there are lots of options visible in a single window which sometimes works against the video editing experience.

Pros:

• Free and open-source.
• Cross-platform video editor.
• Wide input options.
• Cover basic video editing tools.

Cons:

• You can't get AVI output as it has to be MP4 or MKV.
• Need a long time to edit high compressed/resolution/bitrate videos.
• Out-of-date UI and many useful features are hidden on the menu.
• The real-time review is not supported.

Avidemux

If you want to cut and delete several parts of an AVI video in one go, then Avidemux is your thing. Even though it's just a lightweight video editor that comes with a minimal user interface, it offers you access to cut the video precisely by frame and gives you everything you need to do a quick editing, for instance, cutting, cropping, rotating, and subtitling. It also comes in handy when there is a need to cancel noise, adjust sharpness, or make very basic color corrections. The problem is the workflow of Avidemux is quite different from most AVI video editors. It edits video by adding filters which is intricate for most novice users.

Pros:

• Capable of editing AVI and other prevalent video and audios.
• Requires only 512MB RAM Memory, and 50MB hard disk.
• Cover all the needed tools for quick video editing.

Cons:

• Many features are hidden which makes it not easy to use.
• Can't export video in some of the most popular formats like MOV, 3GP, VP8, and VP9.
• Limited to add one filter, and in most cases, you can't preview that filter properly.

Lightworks

Lightworks covers all editing features other basic tools have in this post. In addition, it comes with lots of advanced tools and real-time effects, for example, color grading (balance, main, RGB, HSV, and curve), abundant ready-made transitions. The interface of this fancy AVI editor is a little hard to approach, but it's not a big deal when considering its plethora of features. And, like other NLE video editors, most of your editing works are done on the timeline. My personal favorite is it provides royalty-free music and videos so that nobody can ever file a copyright claim against your video on the internet.

Pros:

• Boasts professional video editing features.
• Supports a wide range of input formats.
• Instantly share on YouTube or Vimeo.

Cons:

• Crashes even when running on a robust computer.
• Takes a steep learning curve for beginners.
• Only enable the output of MPEG4/H.264 videos.
• The highest resolution it can generate is 1280x720p pixels.

Wax Video Editor

Wax Video Editor is very versatile with lots of advanced editing features. It enables us to create multiple video and audio tracks. A unique thing of this free AVI editor is it has 2D and 3D plugins, that's great and cool. However, those extra bells and whistles are also making Wax Video Editor difficult to master for newbies. Especially, when those utilities are distributed on an 80-S style interface.

Pros:

• Boast professional editing features to polish AVI videos.
• Supports a wide range of input formats including AVI, MP4, MOV, WMV, etc.
• Can add multiple video and soundtracks.
• Can use the preset of projects from some other editing like Windows Movie Maker.

Cons:

• Crashes even when running on a robust computer
• Complicate and out of date UI are difficult for newbies to get adapt to.

Windows Movie Maker [Microsoft Photos]

Windows Movie Maker, in my opinion, is the easiest yet full-featured free AVI editor. However, it has been discontinued by Microsoft and is no longer available to download officially. To stay safe, it is not suggested to install it from any third-party website. Its replacement is Microsoft Photos, which is a moderate video editor offering basic editing tools, and by "basic" I mean you can only add background music, add video filters, cut videos, put text in prebuilt formats. There is no access to apply transitions, trim clips, add watermarks, etc.

Pros:

• Easy to use, navigate, and learn for a beginner.
• No need to install it manually as it is prebuilt on Windows 11/10.
• There are rich presets of fonts and 3D effects that can make your AVI videos very catching.

Cons:

• No available transitions.
• Not allow you to trim, watermark, stabilize, speed up/down videos.
• Partially support MOV, AVI, FLV videos.
• Export all types of videos as MP4 format.
• Takes long preparation time to load some small projects.

Best AVI Video Editor Comparison Chart

FAQs

Can you edit an AVI file?

Yes. You can edit an AVI file by using VideoProc Converter AI or any other video editor that supports both the AVI container format and the codecs used for encoding the video inside of the AVI format.

What is AVI editor?

AVI editor is a piece of video editing program that goes compatible with the AVI format and a few of video codecs such as H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9, and DivX. Depending on the using AVI editor, you can trim, crop, rotate, flip, speed up, and merge video clips as well as add subtitles, put watermark, correct fisheye, remove shakiness, etc.

Where can I edit AVI files?

You can edit AVI files inside of VideoProc Converter AI, Shotcut, VideoProc Vlogger, and a few other video editing software listed in this post.