Rescreen / Free tools / Crop video
Crop video
Cut a video down to the part that matters, or reshape it for Shorts, free and with no watermark.
Crop a video
This browser cannot crop video. It needs WebCodecs to read and write frames, which is in current Chrome, Edge and Safari on a computer. Open this page in one of those and try again.
Drop a video here
or choose one from your device
MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV, up to 2.0 GB outside Chrome and Edge. Stays on your device.
- File
- Picture
- –
- Length
- –
Drag a corner to choose the part to keep, or drag the box to move it. Drag outside it to draw a new one. With the box focused, the arrow keys move it, and Shift with an arrow key resizes it.
The whole picture is kept and black bars fill the rest of the shape. Choose Crop to cut the edges off instead.
Loading the first frame…
This browser cannot play this file, so use the timeline to check it. The export still works.
In pixels of the original picture. Width and height are kept even, which H.264 video needs.
Your video will look like this
Starting…
How to crop a video
Open the video, set the crop box, check the preview and download a new MP4.
Choose your video
Choose or drop an MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV file. The first frame opens with a crop box over the middle of the picture. Nothing is uploaded.
Pick a shape or drag the box
Choose 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 or 4:5, or leave it on Free and drag the box around the part you want. Type exact pixel values if you need them.
Check the whole video
Play it or drag the timeline, because something may move out of the box later on. The small preview shows exactly what the new file will hold.
Export and download
Export the video. The tool checks the new MP4's size and length before it offers the download.
Crop or black bars: which to use
Cropping cuts off the edges of the picture. Use it to remove a desktop, a second monitor or a browser’s tabs around the window you recorded, or to fill a vertical screen with the middle of a wide video. What falls outside the box is gone from the new file.
Black bars (letterboxing, or pillarboxing at the sides) keep the whole picture and fill the rest of the shape with black. Use them when nothing at the edges can be lost, such as a full-screen demo where the menu bar matters. The picture is smaller on screen, which makes small text harder to read on a phone.
For a screen recording, a crop to the one window that matters usually reads better than bars, because the text keeps its size. Shorts, Reels and TikTok expect 9:16, so a wide recording needs either a tight crop or bars.
What a 1080p recording becomes in each shape
These are the sizes this tool makes from a 1920×1080 video with the largest box of each shape. A crop keeps the pixels it covers at their own size and never stretches them. Fit adds bars and, where the shape would be larger than the original, scales the frame down so its long side stays 1920 pixels.
| Shape | Used for | Crop | Fit with bars |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16:9 | YouTube, most screens | 1920×1080 (the whole picture) | No bars needed |
| 9:16 | Shorts, Reels, TikTok | 608×1080, keeps 32% | 1080×1920, picture 1080×608 |
| 1:1 | Square posts | 1080×1080, keeps 56% | 1920×1920, picture 1920×1080 |
| 4:5 | Portrait feed posts | 864×1080, keeps 45% | 1536×1920, picture 1536×864 |
Widths and heights are always even numbers, because H.264 video stores colour at half size in each direction. That can take one pixel off an odd-sized video, and puts a fixed shape within one pixel of exact. To work out other sizes, use the aspect ratio calculator.
Other ways to crop a video
- On a Mac. QuickTime Player has no crop. Apple’s free iMovie does: select the clip, click the Cropping button above the viewer, choose Crop to Fill, drag the frame and click Apply. The Photos app can crop a video too: open it, click Edit, then Crop.
- On an iPhone or iPad. In Photos, open the video, tap Edit, then the Crop button. Drag the corners or pick a shape from the shapes button, and tap Done.
- On Windows. Clipchamp, which comes with Windows 11, has a crop button in its toolbar once a clip is on the timeline. The older Photos editor’s crop moved to Clipchamp.
- FFmpeg. The crop filter takes width, height and position:
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf crop=608:1080:656:0 out.mp4. Usepadfor black bars. - Record less in the first place. Most screen recorders can capture one window or an area instead of the whole screen, which saves the crop and keeps the file smaller.
Limitations
- The crop box stays in one place for the whole video. It does not follow anything that moves; for that you would need to cut the video into parts.
- A crop is never scaled up, so a 9:16 crop of a 1080p video is 608×1080, not 1080×1920. Most apps scale it on playback. Use Fit with bars if you need a full-size vertical frame.
- The result is always a new H.264 and AAC MP4. Every frame is re-encoded at the original’s quality per pixel or better, so small text stays sharp; to shrink the file afterwards, use the video compressor.
- Only the first video and sound tracks are kept. Subtitles, chapters and metadata are left out. An HDR video comes out in standard colour.
- In Chrome and Edge on a computer, a big result is written straight to a file you choose. In other browsers files go up to 2.0 GB and the result has to fit in memory.
- A long video takes a while, because every frame is redrawn. Keep the tab open until it finishes.
- It needs WebCodecs, and the page says so before you start if your browser does not have it. It is meant for a computer; on a phone it works with short videos, and dragging small boxes is harder.
Frequently asked questions
More for tidying a recording: the video trimmer, the merge videos tool, the blur video tool, the rotate video tool for sideways or mirrored videos, and the aspect ratio calculator. Our guide to making a tutorial video covers framing before you record.
How can I crop a video?
Open the video on this page, drag the crop box around the part you want or pick a shape, and click Export video. The tool makes a new MP4 in your browser, and you download it when it is checked.
How can I convert a video to 9:16 online for free?
Choose 9:16 under Shape. Crop keeps the middle of the picture and cuts the sides; move the box to keep the part that matters. Fit keeps the whole picture with black bars above and below, at 1080×1920 from a 1080p video.
How do I crop a video on a Mac?
Use this page in Safari or Chrome, or Apple’s iMovie or Photos. QuickTime Player can trim a video but cannot crop one. Our steps for iMovie and Photos are under “Other ways to crop a video” above.
What is the crop button on a Mac?
In iMovie it is the Cropping button above the viewer, which shows Fit, Crop to Fill and Ken Burns. In Photos it is Crop at the top of the editing view. Screenshots have their own crop in the Markup toolbar, but that is for images.
How do I trim a video on a Mac?
Trimming cuts time from the start or end; cropping cuts the edges of the picture. In QuickTime Player choose Edit, then Trim, and drag the yellow handles. In a browser, use our video trimmer.
Which video editor is 100% free?
iMovie on a Mac, Clipchamp’s free plan on Windows, and open-source editors such as Shotcut and Kdenlive are free to use. For a single crop, this page is quicker: it is free, has no watermark and needs no account.
Does cropping lower the quality?
The pixels you keep stay at their own size, and the new file is encoded at the original’s quality per pixel or better, so text stays as sharp as it was. The video is smaller in pixels because the edges are gone, not because it was scaled.
Is my video uploaded?
No. The file is read, cropped and checked inside this page. We count anonymous page views, whether an export started, finished or failed, the shape you chose and technical facts such as the codec, never the file, its name or where the crop was. If an export fails, the page can offer to send the file so we can fix the problem, and it is only sent if you choose to.
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