Crop a video to vertical
You filmed it sideways, and every platform that matters wants it tall. Two ways out, and one of them is better than people think.
Everything happens inside your browser, using your own computer’s memory. Your file is never uploaded, never stored, and nothing is sent to us — so there is no limit on how often you use this.
How cropping to vertical works
At a glance
- Opens
- Any video your browser can read — MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV
- Saves
- MP4 — H.264 video, AAC audio
- Shapes
- 9:16 vertical, 1:1 square, 4:5 portrait
- Two ways
- Crop to fill (sides cut) or keep everything (blurred fill)
- Resolution
- Follows your video's height, up to 1920 pixels
- Quality
- Re-encoded once at CRF 24
How it works
A landscape video and a phone screen are opposite shapes. Fitting one into the other means choosing what to give up: either the sides of the picture, or some of the screen.
Crop to fill scales the video until it covers the new shape, then cuts a window out of it — from the left, the middle or the right, whichever holds the subject. Keep everything shrinks the whole picture to fit the width and fills the space above and below with the same frame, zoomed in and blurred, so there are no black bars and nothing is lost.
Step by step
- Drop the videoIt opens in this tab. Nothing uploads. The first time, the browser downloads the 32 MB video engine and keeps it.
- Pick the shape9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts; 1:1 for the grid; 4:5 for the tallest a feed post allows.
- Crop or keep everythingCrop to fill for a full-screen look — then pick which side the subject is on. Keep everything when nothing may be cut.
- Crop and downloadKeep the tab open while it works. The finished file stays in this browser until you press Delete.
Which setting for which job
| If you are… | Choose |
|---|---|
| A person or product in the middle of a landscape shot | 9:16 · Crop to fill · Middle |
| The subject is off to one side | 9:16 · Crop to fill · Left or Right |
| Text, a sign or a wide scene that must stay whole | 9:16 · Keep everything |
| A feed post that should take more of the screen than a square | 4:5 · Crop to fill |
| The profile grid or an older square layout | 1:1 · Crop to fill |
| The platform asks for exactly 1080 × 1920 | Crop here, then Resize — this tool keeps your video's own resolution |
Under the hood
The technical detail, for anyone who wants to know exactly what happens to their file. Each line first says it plainly.
Aspect ratio
The shape, not the size.
9:16 means 9 units wide for every 16 tall — a phone held upright. A 1920 × 1080 landscape frame is 16:9, the exact opposite.
Scale to cover, then crop
How the fill works.
The frame is enlarged just enough that the new shape is fully covered (force_original_aspect_ratio=increase), then cropped to size at the chosen side, vertically centred. Nothing is stretched.
Blurred backdrop
How keep-everything avoids black bars.
The frame is split in two: one copy is enlarged to cover the frame and softened with a box blur (radius 20, two passes); the other is scaled to fit and laid on top, centred.
Output resolution
Follows your video.
The height matches your video's, rounded to an even number (H.264 requires it), between 320 and 1920 pixels; the width follows from the shape. A 1080p landscape clip therefore becomes 608 × 1080 at 9:16.
libx264 at CRF 24
Rebuilt, with quality held constant.
Cropping changes every frame, so the video is re-encoded: H.264, veryfast preset, constant-quality CRF 24, 8-bit 4:2:0 colour, sound as AAC at 128 kbps, index moved to the front for instant playback.
Platform specs
The shape each platform shows. 9:16 is the full vertical screen on all three.
| Platform | Shape | Resolution | File size | Length | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram Reels | 9:16 | 1440 × 2560 recommended | Up to 4 GB | Up to 15 minutes | MP4 or MOV · H.264 · AAC stereo, 128 kbps or more |
| TikTok | 9:16 recommended | 540 × 960 or larger | Up to 500 MB | — | MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP or AVI |
| YouTube Shorts | Vertical or square | — | — | Up to 3 minutes | — |
From each platform's own published specifications (Meta Ads Guide, TikTok Ads video specifications, YouTube Help), checked September 2026. “—” means the platform does not state it. Platforms change these; check before a big campaign.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The subject's head is cut off | The crop is always vertically centred; only the side is chosen. | Use Keep everything, or reframe while filming so the subject sits in the middle band. |
| The result is 608 × 1080, not 1080 × 1920 | The tool keeps your video's own height, and a 1080p landscape clip is 1080 tall. | Run the result through Resize at 1080 × 1920 if a form asks for that exact size. |
| It is taking a long time | Every frame is re-encoded on one CPU thread; the blurred backdrop is extra work. | Keep the tab open. For a 4K source, compress it to 1080p first — it will crop far faster. |
| My video was already vertical | There is nothing to crop to 9:16; the tool still re-encodes it. | Skip this step, or use 4:5 or 1:1 if you want a feed shape. |
Privacy: your file stays on your computer
Cropping reads every frame of your video. It all happens in your browser, so no one else ever handles the footage.
- What your browser downloads
- The page — and, the first time you use a video tool, the video engine: about 32 MB, then kept in your browser's cache.
- What it sends to us
- Nothing. There is no upload step, no copy on our servers and no account. The work happens in your computer's memory.
- How we know
- Our automated tests run every tool while recording every network request the page makes. A single upload fails the test.
- Where the result lives
- In this browser only, until you press Delete. A finished file is still here if you close the tab and come back; a job still running stops when the tab closes.
Questions
Crop to fill or keep everything?
Crop to fill when the subject is in one part of the frame — it looks native on a phone. Keep everything when the whole frame matters, like a sign, a wide room or text.
Can I choose exactly where to crop?
You choose left, middle or right. The crop is always centred top to bottom.
Will it look lower quality?
A 1080p landscape clip cropped to 9:16 keeps a 608-pixel-wide slice, so it is softer than a clip filmed vertically. Filming upright in the first place always looks best.
Why not just add black bars?
Black bars waste most of the screen and read as a mistake. The blurred backdrop fills the space with your own footage instead.
Is my video uploaded?
No. It is processed by your own browser and never sent anywhere.
A tool makes a file fit. It does not make people watch to the end — that is the hook, the order of the shots, the captions and the music. See how Ruzz does it.
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Resize video
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