Crop Video
Reframe a video to a new crop or aspect ratio.
Choose video file
or drop it anywhere on this page
MP4 · MOV · WEBM · MKV · AVI · WMV · FLV · M4V · 3GP · MPEG · +3
Processed on your device — never uploaded
How to crop video
- Drop your video in. A preview frame appears with the crop overlay.
- Drag the handles or pick a ratio preset. The selection updates across the whole clip.
- Crop and download. Re-encoding is required for crops — the tool shows progress.
About this tool
Cropping a video is primarily a composition decision. Widescreen footage shot on a phone looks awkward in a feed that expects 9:16, and a talking head filmed with too much headroom benefits from a tighter frame. Changing the crop does not change what happened in the scene — it changes what the viewer sees.
Every crop is a re-encode, because the pixel dimensions of the frame are changing and there is no way around that at the compressed video level. Processing speed depends on the clip length, the output resolution, and whether your browser has WebCodecs with hardware acceleration. Chrome and Edge users generally see the fastest results; Safari on Apple Silicon also performs well.
Questions
Why does cropping always re-encode?
Unlike trimming, cropping changes the pixel geometry of every frame. Stream copy cannot produce a narrower or shorter frame — the decoder has to read each frame and the encoder has to write a new one at the new dimensions. That is what takes time.
Can I reframe a widescreen video for Instagram Reels?
Yes. Pick the 9:16 preset, drag the crop box to the area of the frame you want, and the output will be a vertical video at the correct ratio. This is the most common reason people crop video.
What is the quality of the re-encode?
The codec and resolution controls let you set this. H.264 at the source resolution is the default and is visually transparent at reasonable bitrates. If you need to reduce file size at the same time, pick a lower resolution or try VP9 or AV1 for better compression.