Two Simple Methods to Split MKV by Chapters

Q: I have a long MKV file which I want to split into several individual chapters. For example, there are 10 chapter entries in the file - I want to end up with 10 separate files. How can I do that?

A: At times, the MKV movie we download from the Internet contains many chapters, which allows accurately and quickly skipping to the keyframes and save us the trouble of dragging the progress bar to access to the key parts of a movie. In addition to movie, Chapter are also widely applied to TV series, concert videos as well as conference. Many people hope to split MKV by chapters in order that they can play these multiple files apart or only save important parts. Thus, we have rounded up two good simple and effective ways to extract chapters from MKV.

MKVToolnix is a collection of tools for MKV video container format. One of its elements, mkvextract, allows users to extracts specific parts from an MKV file and convert them into other formats. Here is how to use this tool to split MKV.

Step 1. Download MKVToolnix here: https://mkvtoolnix.download/downloads.html

MKVTolnix is available on multiple platforms. You need to navigate to the corresponding section based on your computer OS. For this purpose, you can use the quick navigation bar on the top of the download page.

Step 2. Find mkvtoolnix-gui.exe in the MKVToolnix folder and run it. Under the Input tab, right click and select "Add Files" to import MKV files. Or you can directly drag MKV files into the program.

Step 3. Select the "Output" tab. In the Splitting section, open the Split mode drop-down list, choose "Before chapters", and fill in "all" in the Chapter numbers box.

Step 4. Click on the icon next to "Destination file" at the bottom of the window and specify an output path. Then click on "Start multiplexing" and split MKV chapters into separate files.

XMedia Recode is a free video/audio transcoding program for Windows. It can not only deal with digital videos, but also unprotected DVDs and convert DVDs to files it supports. It also offers other features. For example, you can use it to extract chapters from MKV. The whole operation is a breeze.  

Step 1: Download XMedia Recode and follow its instruction to install it on your computer: https://www.xmedia-recode.de/en/download.html

Step 2. Launch XMedia Recode. On the top left toolbar, click on File > Open File to import MKV files or via the drag-and-drop mode.

Step 3. Right-click on the MKV file, and select "Show Chapters". Press Ctrl+A to select all chapters, right-click and choose "Add to queue".

Step 4. In the lower Format tab, choose Matroska MKV. It also allows you to convert videos to a wide range of formats, such as 3GP, MP4, MOV, and so forth.

If you want, you can customize video parameters under the Video/Audio/Subtitle tab.

Step 5. Navigate to the bottom of the software and choose a destination for saving the output chapters. After that, click on "Encode" on the top menu bar to start to split MKV by chapters.

Once you get the right tool, it can be very simple to split MKV by chapters. There are many other good tools that will help you extract chapters from MKV. We have just summarized two popular and effective methods as shown above. If you have any good suggestion, you're welcome to share it with us.

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