How do I make a landscape video vertical for Reels or TikTok?

Choose Vertical 9:16 and Centre. The middle third of a 16:9 clip is kept at full height; if the subject is off-centre, use a custom region with left set to where the subject is, width about 32 % and height 100 %.

Does cropping lose quality?

The kept pixels are re-encoded once at a bitrate matched to the new frame size, which is visually lossless for most clips. Resolution is not upscaled: a 1080p video cropped to a square is 1080 × 1080.

Can I crop a long video?

Yes, but re-encoding runs at roughly real time or faster on a laptop, so a 10-minute clip takes a few minutes. Trim it first with the Video Trimmer if you only need a part.

Why does the position menu not do anything?

It applies to the ratio presets. In Custom mode the left, top, width and height fields define the region exactly.

Is the video uploaded?

No. Cropping runs in your browser; the file never leaves your device.

Video Converters

Crop Video

Turn a landscape clip into a vertical Reel, cut the black bars off a screen recording or zoom into one corner of the frame — pick a ratio or type the region in percent and get a clean MP4.

Runs in your browser — files never leave your device.

Drop MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV file here

or click to browse · paste from clipboard · up to 2000 MB

Select file

Options

Crop to

Keep which part

For ratio presets only

Custom: left (% of width)

Custom: top (% of height)

Custom: width (%)

Custom: height (%)

Quality

Audio

Why convert MP4 to MP4

Cropping removes pixels from the edges of every frame, so the remaining area fills the whole video. That is how a 16:9 phone recording becomes a 9:16 Story without letterboxing, how a 4:3 webcam feed loses its black bars, and how a screen capture can focus on one window. Unlike a filter or an overlay, the crop is baked into the file and works everywhere.

The video is decoded and re-encoded to H.264 in your browser with the same frame rate and a bitrate matched to the new size, and the audio track is copied unchanged. A 1-minute 1080p clip takes roughly 20–60 seconds on a laptop. HEVC iPhone clips work in Safari, Edge and Chrome with hardware decoding.

How to convert files to MP4

Drop the video.
Choose an aspect ratio and where to keep the frame (centre, left, right, top, bottom), or enter a custom region as percentages.
Click Crop and download the MP4.

About the formats

MP4 · MPEG-4 Part 14 video · .mp4

The video format that works everywhere: phones, TVs, browsers, social networks. Normally H.264 video with AAC audio.

MP4 is a container; the codec inside (H.264, HEVC/H.265, AV1) decides what can play it.
H.264 MP4 is the safe choice for uploads and sharing; HEVC MP4 from newer iPhones needs extra codecs on Windows.
The “moov atom” placement decides whether a browser can start playing before the whole file downloads.

MOV · QuickTime movie · .mov

Apple’s QuickTime container, the default for iPhone videos and Mac screen recordings; very close to MP4 but not accepted everywhere.

MOV and MP4 share the same underlying structure, so MOV to MP4 usually only needs repackaging, not re-encoding.
iPhone MOV files are often HEVC (H.265) with HDR, which Windows and many web apps cannot play without conversion.
Screen recordings on Mac are MOV with H.264 and can be very large.

WebM · WebM video · .webm

The royalty-free web video format (VP8/VP9/AV1 video, Vorbis/Opus audio) produced by browser screen recorders, Discord and many online tools.

WebM is based on Matroska and plays in every browser, but not in iMovie, Premiere or on most phones without conversion.
Browser recording APIs output WebM, which is why screen recordings from web apps come as .webm.
WebM to MP4 requires re-encoding the video, because MP4 does not carry VP9 widely.

MKV · Matroska video · .mkv

An open container that can hold any codec plus multiple audio tracks, subtitles and chapters; popular for rips and downloads, unsupported by iPhone and many TVs.

MKV to MP4 keeps the video quality when the codec is H.264 or HEVC — only the container changes.
MP4 cannot carry every MKV feature: soft subtitles and some audio codecs (e.g. DTS) must be converted or dropped.
Most desktop players (VLC, MPV) play MKV; Safari, iOS and PowerPoint do not.

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