Crop a Video to Vertical for Reels and TikTok

To crop a video for Reels or TikTok, cut the frame down to a vertical 9:16 shape and choose which part of the original picture to keep. Cropping fills the whole phone screen with your footage, instead of shrinking a landscape clip into a thin strip with bars above and below it.

This guide explains the shapes each kind of post uses, how to decide what to keep when you crop video from landscape to portrait, and how to do it for free in your browser.

Why crop video instead of posting it as it is?

When a video's shape does not match the screen, the app has to do something with the leftover space. Usually it adds bars, either black or blurred, around a small version of your video. On a phone feed full of edge-to-edge vertical clips, a letterboxed landscape video looks small and is easy to scroll past.

Cropping fixes it properly. It removes part of the frame so that what remains has exactly the shape you need, and that shape then fills the screen.

The trade-off is that cropping throws picture away. Turning a landscape video into a vertical one keeps only about a third of the original width. What you choose to keep decides whether the result works.

The shapes you need to know

Video shapes are described as aspect ratios: width to height.

Platforms change their specifications from time to time, and some, including X and Facebook, accept several shapes. If you are publishing for a client or a campaign, check the platform's own current guidance before you export. For text limits that go with these posts, see our guide to social media character limits.

How to crop a video with TinyTools

The TinyTools Crop Video tool reframes your clip to one of the four common shapes on your own device, with nothing uploaded.

1. Add your video. Drag in an MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV file, or click to choose one. Files up to 500 MB are accepted.
2. Choose a shape. Pick 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, 1:1 for a square post, 4:5 for a tall feed post, or 16:9 for YouTube and screens.
3. Choose what to keep. If the tool is cutting width, choose Left, Centre or Right. If it is cutting height, choose Top, Middle or Bottom. The preview shows the area that will survive.
4. Pick a quality. High is the default and barely changes the picture. Balanced and Small make a smaller file.
5. Crop and download. The new file has exactly the shape you chose, with nothing added around the edges.

If your video is already the shape you picked, the tool tells you nothing would be cut, so you do not waste time re-encoding it.

Deciding what to keep

Because a vertical crop of a landscape video discards most of the width, the position matters more than any other setting.

Find where the action is. If a person speaking is in the middle of the frame, Centre is right. If they are standing to one side, choose Left or Right to keep them in shot.

Check the whole clip, not just the first frame. The crop is fixed for the entire video. If someone walks from one side of the frame to the other, a fixed vertical crop will lose them for part of the clip. For footage like that, consider a 4:5 or 1:1 crop, which keeps more of the width, or trim to the section where they stay put.

Mind on-screen text. Captions, titles or slides near the edges of a landscape video will be cut off in a 9:16 crop. You may need to add text again after cropping, inside the vertical frame.

Plan for app overlays. Reels and TikTok place buttons, captions and your username over parts of the screen, mostly along the bottom and right side. Keep important details away from those edges.

Tips for better vertical video

• Shoot vertically when you can. Cropping is a rescue. Footage filmed in portrait for a portrait platform will always use the full resolution of your camera.
• Trim before you crop. Cut the clip to the part you will post first with Trim Video. Our guide on how to trim a video walks through it. Less footage means a faster crop and a smaller file.
• Compress afterwards if needed. A cropped video is usually smaller because it has fewer pixels, but if it is still too large to upload or send, run it through the Video Compressor.
• Do not add bars yourself. Bars baked into a file can end up doubled if the platform adds its own. The tool fills the frame rather than padding it for that reason.

What cropping does not do

It does not resize. Cropping changes the shape by removing part of the picture. Resizing changes the number of pixels while keeping the whole picture. If your problem is file size rather than shape, the compressor is the right tool.

It does not rotate. A video that plays sideways usually carries rotation information that a player is ignoring. Converting it to MP4 with the video converter normally settles that. Cropping only changes which part of the frame is kept.

It does not track movement. The crop position stays fixed for the whole clip.

It needs a supported browser. Like the other video tools, it uses WebCodecs, available in Chrome, Edge, Safari 16.4 and later, and recent Firefox. On iPhone and iPad, updating iOS is what helps if your browser is not supported.

Frequently asked questions

What size should a Reels or TikTok video be?

Both use a 9:16 vertical shape that fills a phone screen. A common resolution for that shape is 1080 × 1920 pixels, but the ratio is what matters most. Check each platform's current guidance for file size and length limits.

How do I crop a landscape video to portrait?

Choose the 9:16 shape, then pick Left, Centre or Right to decide which vertical slice of the frame to keep. Preview it, then crop and download.

Will cropping lower the quality of my video?

The video is re-encoded, which causes a very small loss. At the default High setting it is hard to see. Keep in mind that cropping a landscape clip to vertical uses fewer of the original pixels, so the result has a lower resolution than the source.

Can I crop a video on my phone?

Yes, in a mobile browser that supports WebCodecs. Shorter clips are easier on a phone, since the video is processed in its memory.

Is my video uploaded when I crop it?

1. Cropping runs entirely in your browser on your own device. Nothing is sent to a server.

Ready to make your landscape footage fit the feed? Open Crop Video, choose 9:16, and pick the part of the frame worth keeping.