Crop & Reframe Video Online

Reframe horizontal footage for vertical Shorts, cut out letterboxing from old downloads, or tighten on the subject when your original camera framing was too loose. Preset aspect ratios — 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, and 4:5 — cover every major social platform. Set your own custom dimensions for unusual displays and banners.

Cropping and reframing happen entirely in your browser. Your un-cropped master file stays on disk; only the finished export is downloaded from the in-browser processing environment.

How to crop a video for social platforms

1

Upload your source video

Load landscape or portrait material — MP4, MOV, or WebM. The tool previews the file in the player so you can see what you are working with before setting crop dimensions.

2

Pick an aspect ratio preset

Choose 16:9 for widescreen YouTube, 9:16 for TikTok and Instagram Reels, 1:1 for feed posts on Instagram and LinkedIn, or 4:5 for portrait-orientation feed content. Or drag a custom rectangle for specific dimensions.

3

Position the crop frame

Drag the crop box so faces, products, or key action are centred within the safe area. Check the frame at the beginning and end of the clip to confirm nothing important drifts out of the crop window.

4

Export the cropped video

FFmpeg crops the video stream to your specified dimensions and re-encodes to an H.264 MP4. Resolution of the output matches the dimensions of the selected crop area.

5

Verify on a mobile device

Open the cropped export on a phone screen to confirm all important content stays within the visible frame, especially for 9:16 content where platform UI (buttons, captions) can overlap the edges.

Common use cases

  • Repurposing landscape recordings as vertical Shorts

    Webinar recordings, conference presentations, and landscape-format interviews become vertical content by cropping to 9:16 — keeping the speaker in frame while removing empty background.

  • Removing letterboxing and black bars

    Old downloads, DVD rips, and broadcast recordings often have hard-coded black bars. Crop to the active picture area and export a clean-edge MP4.

  • Tightening on the product

    Product demo videos filmed with too much surrounding room benefit from a tighter crop around the item — especially for mobile-first platforms where small products disappear in wide shots.

  • Talking-head LinkedIn and Instagram content

    Crop interview footage to keep eyes in the upper third of a 4:5 or 9:16 frame, following the standard advice that faces should fill most of the vertical space in short-form social video.

  • Creating multiple versions from one source

    Export a 16:9 version for YouTube, a 9:16 version for Reels, and a 1:1 version for the grid — all from the same original recording without re-shooting.

  • Removing identifying information from the frame

    Crop out on-screen identifiers, location data displayed in the frame, or third-party branded elements that should not appear in your published version.

Best practices

  • Shoot in 4K when possible — cropping discards pixels, and higher source resolution means the cropped area still looks sharp on HD displays.
  • Leave 15–20% headroom above heads in 9:16 crops for TikTok's text overlay bar and YouTube Shorts' comment interface.
  • Rotate a sideways clip first, then crop — the Rotate tool fixes orientation before you reframe.
  • Trim dead air before cropping to save encode time — shorter clips process faster.
  • Compress the output with the Video Compressor if the cropped vertical file is too large for DM or email delivery.
  • For talking-head content, apply the rule of thirds: position eyes one third from the top of the frame, not dead-centre.

Formats & compatibility

Input: MP4, MOV, WebM. Output: MP4 (H.264). Crop dimensions depend on preset and source resolution. Extreme crops on 720p sources may appear soft on large displays — always prefer higher-resolution source material when you know you will need to crop.

Related tools

  • Rotate & flip — fix portrait/landscape orientation before applying a crop
  • Video compressor — reduce file size of the cropped vertical export for messaging and DM delivery
  • Video trimmer — shorten the clip to its key segment before reframing

Choose your aspect ratio preset above and export a platform-ready reframed clip in one pass.

Frequently asked questions

9:16 vertical fills the TikTok phone screen. Crop any landscape or square footage to 9:16 before posting for the best viewing experience.
You remove pixels when cropping a low-resolution file, which can look soft if the remaining area is enlarged on a large screen. Always start from the highest quality source available.
This tool re-encodes for accurate, compatible crops. Re-encoding is necessary to produce a valid container with correct resolution metadata.
Presets match platform specifications exactly (9:16, 16:9, 1:1, 4:5). Freeform lets you drag any dimensions for custom displays, banners, or unusual formats.
Yes. Audio is re-muxed into the output container unchanged unless you mute separately.
No. All cropping happens locally in the browser through FFmpeg WebAssembly — your file never leaves your device.
Yes on desktops with sufficient RAM and CPU. Processing takes longer than 1080p. Expect 2–5 minutes for a 10-minute 4K clip on a modern laptop.
The output will be the exact pixel dimensions of your crop rectangle. Very small crop areas on 720p sources will look pixelated when played full-screen on modern displays.