Cropping a video cuts away the edges of the picture and keeps the part you choose. It is how a landscape clip becomes a vertical Reel, how a webcam recording loses the messy shelf in the corner, and how a screen recording zooms in on the one window that matters. Unlike trimming, which shortens a video in time, cropping changes what is in the frame.
This tool shows your video with a crop box on top. Drag it, resize it from the corners, pick a shape or type exact pixel values, then let our server produce the cropped MP4.
How to crop a video
- Drop the video onto the box above or click to choose it. MP4, MOV, WEBM, MKV, AVI and other formats are accepted, up to the size and length shown.
- Pick a Shape: Free for any rectangle, or 1:1, 9:16, 4:5 or 16:9. A shape gives you the largest box of that shape, centered.
- Move the box by dragging it, or resize it from a corner. With a shape selected, resizing keeps the shape. You can also move the box with the arrow keys (hold Shift for bigger steps) or type Left, Top, Width and Height in pixels of the original video.
- Use Play preview to check that the subject stays inside the box for the whole clip. Center the box and Select all help you start over.
- Click Crop video. The line under the preview tells you the final size, for example 1080 x 1920 px. The MP4 downloads when it is ready and plays on the result screen.
If your browser cannot preview the file (some MKV, AVI and iPhone HEVC videos on Windows or Linux), the crop box is not shown. Choose a shape instead and the video is cropped from the center.
Which shape for which platform (October 2026)
| Where it goes | Shape | Size to aim for |
|---|---|---|
| Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels, Stories | 9:16 vertical | 1080 x 1920 |
| Instagram and Facebook feed video | 4:5 portrait, the tallest the feed shows | 1080 x 1350 |
| Square posts, LinkedIn, marketplace listings, carousels | 1:1 | 1080 x 1080 |
| YouTube, websites, presentations | 16:9 landscape | 1920 x 1080 |
Instagram profile grids now show posts as 3:4 thumbnails, so keep important details away from the very top and bottom of a 4:5 video. Reels and Shorts can be up to 3 minutes long as of October 2026.
Crop sizes for common footage
The largest box of each shape, as the tool will draw it. Sizes are rounded to even pixels.
| Your video | 9:16 | 4:5 | 1:1 | 16:9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1920 x 1080 (landscape 1080p) | 608 x 1080 | 864 x 1080 | 1080 x 1080 | Already 16:9 |
| 3840 x 2160 (landscape 4K) | 1216 x 2160 | 1728 x 2160 | 2160 x 2160 | Already 16:9 |
| 1080 x 1920 (vertical phone video) | Already 9:16 | 1080 x 1350 | 1080 x 1080 | 1080 x 608 |
| 1280 x 720 (webcam, older phones) | 406 x 720 | 576 x 720 | 720 x 720 | Already 16:9 |
If the result is smaller than the platform's recommended size, that is fine: the platform scales it up. It will just look less sharp than footage that started at that size.
What cropping does to quality
Cropping keeps fewer pixels, it never adds any. If you crop a 1920 x 1080 landscape video to 9:16, the tallest box that fits is 608 x 1080 pixels. Platforms will scale that up to fill a phone screen, so it looks softer than footage shot vertically. Some practical rules:
- Crop 4K footage to vertical whenever you can: a 9:16 box from 3840 x 2160 is 1216 x 2160, sharper than a full HD phone screen needs.
- Keep the box as large as your subject allows. Cropping a small corner and blowing it up exaggerates noise and blur.
- The cropped video is re-encoded to H.264 at high quality. Pixel values are rounded to even numbers, which H.264 requires.
- The sound is not changed.
Warning: A crop box is fixed for the whole video. If your subject walks across the frame, part of the clip will cut them off. Check with Play preview, or split the clip with the video trimmer and crop each part on its own.
Plan the crop before you film
The best crops start at the camera. If you know a clip will end up vertical and square as well as landscape, film for all three:
- Shoot wide and keep the subject central. A centered product survives a 9:16, 4:5 and 1:1 crop. Something at the edge of a landscape frame only survives the 16:9 version.
- Leave headroom. Vertical crops cut the sides, square crops cut the sides less, and 4:5 keeps more height. Do not frame a face tightly at the top of a landscape shot.
- Mind the app overlays. Reels, TikTok and Shorts put captions, the account name and buttons over the bottom and right side of the video. Keep text and the product away from those areas when you place the box.
- Film in 4K if your phone allows it. You can crop a sharp vertical video out of 4K landscape footage, which you cannot do from 1080p.
One clip, several platforms
A common routine for sellers and creators: film once in landscape, then crop three times. Start with 16:9 for YouTube or your website (the original, maybe trimmed). Choose the clip again, pick 9:16, place the box and crop for Reels, TikTok and Shorts. Then pick 4:5 for the Instagram and Facebook feed. Each crop is its own job, and because you crop from the original each time, quality does not drop from one version to the next. Name the files by shape, such as launch-9x16.mp4, so you upload the right one to each app.
Cropping versus adding bars
There are two ways to fit a landscape video into a vertical post. Cropping (this tool) fills the screen but removes the sides. Adding bars (letterboxing) keeps the whole picture but leaves empty space above and below, which looks small on a phone and is often filled with a blurred copy of the video. Cropping usually performs better on Reels and TikTok because the subject is bigger. Letterboxing is the better choice when the whole width matters, such as a slide or a wide product shot.
Worked examples
A landscape product video for Reels
A 1920 x 1080 product clip has the product in the middle third. Pick 9:16; the page shows the largest box, 608 x 1080, centered. Nudge it left so the product sits slightly off center, play the preview, and crop. Post it as a Reel and TikTok without black bars.
Removing a watermark strip or a messy edge
A webcam recording has a cluttered strip along the right edge. Keep Free, drag the right edge of the box in until the clutter is gone, and crop. The result keeps the original height. Only remove watermarks from footage you own or have licensed.
Zooming in on a screen recording
A 2560 x 1440 screen recording shows a small settings window. Draw a 16:9 box around the window, about 1280 x 720, and crop. The window now fills the frame, readable on a phone.
A talking-head clip for LinkedIn
A 1280 x 720 webcam recording shows you small in the middle with a lot of wall around you. Pick 4:5, which LinkedIn and Facebook feeds show tall, and you get a 576 x 720 box. Move it so your eyes sit about a third of the way down, play the preview to check you stay inside it while you gesture, and crop. You fill far more of the screen in the feed than in the original.
Square video for a marketplace listing
Pick 1:1 and center the product. A 1080 x 1080 square is a safe shape for listing videos and carousels. For Etsy, keep listing clips between 3 and 15 seconds and under 100 MB, which is Etsy's rule as of October 2026.
Using the controls precisely
- Mouse: drag inside the box to move it, drag a corner mark to resize. The opposite corner stays where it is.
- Touch: the same gestures work with a finger on phones and tablets. The page does not scroll while you drag the box.
- Keyboard: click the box (or tab to it) and use the arrow keys. Each press moves about 1 percent of the video's width; hold Shift for five times that.
- Numbers: the four fields use pixels of the original video, not of the preview on your screen. Typing a width with 9:16 selected sets the matching height for you.
- Shape buttons: clicking 1:1, 9:16, 4:5 or 16:9 resets the box to the largest box of that shape, centered. Free keeps the current box and lets you resize it in any direction. Pick the shape first, then position the box.
Crop and trim together
Crop and trim are separate jobs here. For a short vertical clip from a long landscape video, trim first with the video trimmer: the cropped upload is then smaller and faster, and you can check the crop against only the part you are keeping. If the result is still too large for an app or an email, finish with the video compressor.
Common cropping mistakes
- Checking only the first frame. The preview shows the start of the clip. A presenter who steps to the side halfway through gets cut off. Use Play preview before you crop.
- Cropping a copy of a copy. Every re-encode costs a little detail. Crop from the original recording, not from a video that was already compressed for WhatsApp or downloaded from a social app.
- Cutting text at the edge. Burned-in captions and lower thirds sit near the bottom of landscape videos. A 9:16 crop often cuts their start and end. Add captions after cropping instead.
- Forgetting the sound. The crop keeps the original audio. If the clip had background noise or music you cannot use, mute it or replace it afterwards.
Limits and privacy
- One video per job, up to the size and length shown in the drop box. For long footage, trim first.
- The crop box is the same for the whole clip; there is no tracking of a moving subject.
- The video is deleted from our server when the job ends, and the cropped MP4 30 minutes after it is ready. Nothing else is sent.
Cropping is not resizing or rotating
- Crop removes parts of the picture (this tool).
- Rotate turns a sideways video upright: use rotate video.
- Compress keeps the whole picture but makes the file smaller: use the video compressor.
- Cropping a photo instead of a video: the image cropper has the same shapes.
Videos are only part of a social calendar. For the photo posts in between, AM Jarvis Social Autopilot turns your products and pages into Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook photo posts sized for each platform and schedules them. It does not publish video, so you post Reels yourself.
Troubleshooting
"The crop box covers the whole video"
Nothing would be removed. Drag a corner inwards or choose a shape first.
The cropped video looks blurry on my phone
The box was small, so the platform enlarges it. Use a larger box, higher resolution footage, or a shape closer to the original.
The crop is in the wrong place on an iPhone video
Some files store their rotation separately from the picture. The preview shows the video upright, and the server crops the same upright picture. If the result still looks wrong, rotate the original first with rotate video, then crop the rotated copy.