Sometimes a video has too much in it. There are black bars from a screen recording, a stranger at the side of the shot, or a wide frame when you wanted a tall one. To crop video is to cut away the edges you do not want and keep only the part that matters.
This video cropper lets you do that by dragging a box right on the preview. You can move it, pull its corners, type exact numbers, or lock it to a common shape such as 1:1 or 9:16. You crop video online here, but everything runs in your browser, so your file is not uploaded.
Read on for how to crop a video step by step, how to get a clean square or vertical crop, which files you can use, and the difference between cropping and resizing.
How to crop a video in your browser
The video cropper needs nothing installed and no account. The steps are the same for a phone clip or a screen recording.
- Drop your video onto the page, or choose it from your device. You can add several files at once.
- A crop box appears on the preview, centred. It starts at 70 percent of the frame. Drag inside the box to move it, or drag a corner to make it bigger or smaller.
- If you want a particular shape, pick a chip under Shape: Free, 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 or 4:3.
- Look at the From and To lines. From is the size of your original and To is the size of the cropped file.
- Press Crop. Save each result, or download them all as a zip.
The area outside the box is dimmed, and a rule-of-thirds grid sits inside it, which helps when you are framing a subject. The size of the box in pixels is shown on the stage as you drag.
Crop video to 9:16, 1:1, 16:9, 4:5 or 4:3
The row of chips under Shape locks the box to a fixed ratio, so the width and height keep the same relationship however you drag. Choosing a chip re-centres a box that is 80 percent of the frame at that shape. Free unlocks the shape and leaves the box where it is.
| Chip | Shape | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Any rectangle | Removing bars or trimming one side |
| 16:9 | Wide | Landscape players and presentations |
| 9:16 | Tall | Phone-first, full-screen vertical video |
| 1:1 | Square | Feed posts and profile clips |
| 4:5 | Slightly tall | Portrait posts that use more of the screen |
| 4:3 | Classic | Older footage and some slide formats |
Crop video to square
Tap 1:1. A square box appears in the middle of your frame. Drag it so your subject sits where you want, then press Crop. You keep the part of the picture inside the square and lose the rest.
If you want the whole picture inside a square instead, with bars, you want a resize rather than a crop. See resize video and choose Fit.
Crop to a vertical 9:16 frame
Pick 9:16 and move the box over the part of a wide shot you want in a tall frame. This is a good way to pull a vertical clip out of landscape footage when the action is in one part of the picture. The crop keeps your original pixels, so the file is smaller in size but not blurred by scaling.
A crop always loses the sides of a wide shot. If the whole picture must stay in the tall frame, with bars above and below, resize video for TikTok instead and choose Fit.
Set the crop dimensions with Left, Top, Width and Height
Dragging is quick, but sometimes you need precise numbers, for example to remove exactly 80 pixels of black bar from the top. Under the chips there are four fields that update as you drag and can be edited by hand.
- Left: how many pixels in from the left edge the box starts.
- Top: how many pixels down from the top edge it starts.
- Width and Height: the size of the box.
The box can never be smaller than 32 pixels, and it must stay inside the frame. If you pick a shape chip, the shape is kept when you edit a number, so changing the width changes the height with it.
Two buttons help when you get lost. Centre it puts the box back in the middle of the frame at its current size. Reset returns to the starting box and sets Shape to Free.
The video is saved as an MP4, and an odd side is rounded down to an even number, so the To line shows exactly what the file will be.
Crop video or resize it? Know the difference
People often use the two words for the same thing, but they do different jobs. Cropping removes part of the picture. Resizing changes the size of the whole picture.
| You want to | Use | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Cut away black bars or the edge of a shot | Crop | The frame gets smaller because pixels are removed |
| Make the video fit a platform size | Resize | Every pixel is scaled to the new size |
| Keep everything but change the shape | Resize with Fit | Bars are added, nothing is lost |
| Fill a new shape and lose a little | Resize with Fill | Edges are trimmed automatically |
A common workflow is to crop first, to frame the subject how you like, then resize to the platform size. If the clip is also on its side, rotate video comes first so the box is drawn on the right way up picture.
The same goes for a reflection. If writing in a selfie clip reads backwards, flip video left to right first. If you want an upside down video, with top and bottom swapped, do that first too. Then you draw the box on the picture as it will finally look.
Crop MP4 and MOV files privately, with no watermark
You can crop MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM and M4V files, and every result is saved as an MP4. The crop runs on your own computer, inside the browser tab. Your video is never uploaded, and the server does no video work. That suits private clips and unreleased work, and the privacy policy at the foot of the page has the details.
If you drop several files, the box you draw is applied to every one. When a file has a different size from the first, the box is scaled to the same share of its frame, so each result is cropped the same way rather than failing.
- Free, with no account and no watermark.
- Video tools are not counted in the free daily limit, which applies to document conversions only.
- Works in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox.
- Most videos have no size limit. A few files, such as certain AVI or WMV videos, take longer and can be up to 2 GB.
Once the crop is done, you might want to trim the video to the best part.
Crop your video now
This video cropper comes down to one box. Drag it over the part you want, lock it to a Shape if you need one, and check the From and To lines. Use Left, Top, Width and Height when you need exact numbers, and Centre it or Reset if the box gets away from you.
It is free, has no watermark, and nothing leaves your device. Drop your video in the tool above and press Crop.
