How to crop a video to square, vertical or widescreen

A video filmed in one shape often needs to fit another: a wide clip for a square post, a landscape recording for a tall phone screen. Cropping cuts away the edges so the part you care about fills the frame.

Pick the shape

Square (1:1) suits profile pictures and feed posts that are shown as squares.
Vertical (9:16) is the shape of a phone held upright, used for full-screen short videos and stories.
Portrait (4:5) is slightly taller than a square and uses more of the screen in a feed.
Widescreen (16:9) suits presentations, websites and most computer screens.
Classic (4:3) is the older, squarer television shape.

Choose what stays

The crop uses as much of the picture as it can for the shape you picked. When the video is wider or taller than that shape, a slider lets you move the crop across the picture. Watch the preview and keep the subject, usually a face or the main action, well inside the frame.

Leave room at the edges

Apps place buttons, captions and names over the picture. Keep faces and any text away from the outer edges so nothing important sits under them.

Size and quality

Cropping makes the video again, so it takes a little longer than turning or trimming. The picture is not scaled up or stretched. Because the cropped picture is smaller, the file is usually smaller too: a square cut from a widescreen clip is a good deal lighter than the original.

Crop or resize?

Cropping removes the edges and keeps the rest at full detail. If you only need a smaller file, compress it instead and nothing is cut away.

Crop a video Free, no account, nothing uploaded.