An electrically-powered nail cutting apparatus includes a housing having a front face and a rear face, two sides, a top and a bottom. The front face of the housing having an open slot at least 0.5 mm in height and between 0.7 cm and 4 cm in width, the slot having a front-facing opening and a rear-facing opening. Within the housing and proximal to the rear-facing opening is a vertically translating nail-cutting blade plate associated with an electric motor that is configured to translate the nail-cutting blade plate consecutively down and up. The blade plate is a solid material having an opening therein, wherein the top of the opening comprises a cutting blade with a cutting edge within the opening such that the cutting edge is adjacent the rear-facing element.