Crop video

Why crop a video

YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok are vertical (9:16). A landscape video uploaded there gets black bars or a tiny picture. Cropping keeps the part of the frame that matters and fills the screen. Cropping is also useful for removing a webcam overlay, a taskbar, black bars or anything else at the edge of the frame.

The video is processed in your browser and is not uploaded.

How to crop a video

1. Drop the video in the area above.
2. Under Crop, choose a ratio: Free, 1:1, 16:9, 9:16 or 4:3.
3. Drag the box on the video to move it over your subject. Drag its edges to change the size. The ratio stays fixed unless you chose Free.
4. If you only need part of the video, select a range on the thumbnail strip.
5. Click Save edited video. The output size is shown before you save.

Which ratio to use

• 9:16: YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, TikTok, Snapchat and stories.
• 1:1: square posts in feeds and profile videos.
• 16:9: YouTube and most video players. Use it to remove black bars from a wider or taller video.
• 4:3: older TV and camera footage, and some presentation slides.
• Free: any rectangle, for example to cut out one window from a screen recording.

Getting a sharp vertical clip

A 9:16 crop from a 1920×1080 video is about 608×1080. That is a narrow slice of the original, so leave the resolution at the original setting to keep every pixel. Starting from 4K footage gives a much sharper vertical clip. Before you crop, check where your subject moves during the clip. The crop box stays in one position for the whole video.

Cropping always re-encodes the video, so it takes longer than a plain trim. To save time, select only the range you plan to post before you click save. A 30-second Short encodes much faster than the full 10-minute source.

Removing black bars or overlays

Choose Free and drag the box edges to the inside of the bars, a webcam corner or a recording watermark. The output size shown below the video updates as you drag, so you can check the final pixel size before saving.