About the Crop Video
Every platform wants a different shape: square posts, vertical Reels and TikToks, 4:5 feed videos, widescreen YouTube. This tool crops a video to the shape you need. Choose the shape, slide the frame left, right, up or down, and check the preview, which darkens the part that will be cut away. The crop is applied to every frame and saved as a high-quality MP4 with the original sound. Cropping happens on your device; the video is never uploaded.
Updated October 2026
How to use the Crop Video
- 1Select a video.
- 2Choose the new shape.
- 3Pause the video on a typical moment.
- 4Move the frame with the two sliders and check the preview.
- 5Press Crop video and download the MP4.
Shapes for each platform
Choose the shape the platform shows full-screen.
- Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts: 9:16
- Instagram and Facebook feed: 4:5 or 1:1
- YouTube, websites, TVs: 16:9
- Cinematic look: 21:9
Framing tips
Keep faces and text inside the bright area of the preview, and leave room at the top and bottom of vertical videos, where apps show captions and buttons. Pause on a moment with movement to make sure the action stays in frame.
How it works without uploading
Your browser has a built-in video engine (WebCodecs) that phones and computers use to play and record video. This tool uses it through Mediabunny, an open-source media library, to read your file, change it and write a new one, all inside the page. Speed depends on your device: a recent phone or laptop handles a few minutes of HD video comfortably, while long 4K files take longer.
Crop or resize?
Crop changes the shape by removing parts of the picture. Resize keeps the whole picture and makes it smaller. To fit a widescreen video into a vertical post without losing the sides, you would need to add bars instead, which video editors can do.
How the crop size is chosen
The tool always takes the biggest area of the chosen shape that fits inside your video, then lets you move it. For a 1920 × 1080 landscape video, a square crop is 1080 × 1080 and a 4:5 crop is 864 × 1080. Sizes are rounded to even numbers because video encoders require them.
Upload settings
Most platforms re-compress videos you upload. Crop to the platform's shape first, so the app doesn't add its own bars or crop the edges in a way you didn't choose.
Phone and computer
The preview and sliders work on touch screens. Cropping re-encodes every frame, so allow about as long as the video plays. After cropping, shrink the file with the Video Compressor, and use Resize Video for a different size.
Features
- 1:1, 9:16, 4:5, 16:9, 4:3 and 21:9
- Adjustable crop position
- Live crop preview
- Largest possible crop for each shape
- High-quality MP4 with sound
- No upload
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a horizontal video vertical for TikTok or Reels?
Choose Vertical 9:16 and slide the frame to keep the important part. The sides of the picture are cut away.
Does cropping lower the resolution?
It keeps only part of the picture, so the result has fewer pixels: a 9:16 crop of a 1920 × 1080 video is 608 × 1080. Nothing is scaled, so it stays sharp.
Can I crop a different area for different parts of the video?
No. The same crop applies to the whole video. Split the video with Trim Video if different parts need different framing.
Why are the sliders sometimes greyed out?
When the crop already uses the full width or height, there is nothing to move in that direction.
Which browsers work best?
Chrome and Edge on computers and Android support the most video formats. Safari 16.4+ and recent Firefox work too, but some codecs, such as HEVC in Firefox, may not be supported there.
Is my video uploaded?
No. It is processed on your own device with your browser's built-in video engine, so private videos never leave your phone or computer.
Will the sound stay?
Yes, the original sound is kept with the cropped video.