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Drag, snap, export

Keep the part that matters

Every platform asks for a different frame. The interesting part of a wide shot is usually a narrow slice of it, and the rest is a wall, a chair or empty sky. Drag the frame, pick the ratio, and the pixels outside it are gone for good.

  • Free crop or seven locked ratios
  • Rule-of-thirds guides while you drag
  • Output up to the source resolution
1920 × 10809:16
What is left1076 × 1080
  • 1:11080 × 108056% × 100%
  • 4:5864 × 108045% × 100%
  • 9:16608 × 108032% × 100%
  • 16:91920 × 1080100% × 100%
  • 4:31440 × 108075% × 100%
  • 3:4810 × 108042% × 100%

The frame is cut out of the source and then scaled: nothing is stretched, so faces keep their shape.

A crop is a decision about what the viewer is allowed to see. Everything else is trimming.
The rule editors learn first
Short answerLast edited October 31, 2026

The Video Cropper cuts a video to a square, a vertical frame or any area you drag, and saves it at the size you choose. A 1080-pixel square taken from a 1920-pixel frame keeps 56% of the width, and the crop is applied during the encode in your browser.

How it works

1

Add the video

Open the file you want to reframe.

2

Choose the crop

Set the area to keep, or pick the aspect ratio you need.

3

Download the cropped video

Export the new frame.

Three moves, one frame

Drag the frame

Move the whole box with a pointer or pull a corner. The thirds guides stay on, so the subject can sit where the eye expects it.

Lock a ratio

Nine by sixteen, four by five, one by one — the box keeps the shape while you resize it, and the list shows the exact output it produces.

Export the slice

The crop is cut out first and then scaled with Lanczos, so nothing is stretched. MP4 with the audio track kept in sync.

Which ratio goes where

RatioWhere it belongsWhat it costs
9:16 · 1080 × 1920Shorts, Reels, TikTok, storiesYou lose the sides of a landscape shot
4:5 · 1080 × 1350Instagram feed, Facebook feedThe tallest frame a feed shows without cropping
1:1 · 1080 × 1080Avatars, carousels, thumbnailsBalanced, but leaves empty corners on most screens
16:9 · 1920 × 1080YouTube, players, presentationsThe default; vertical footage loses its top and bottom
4:3 · 1440 × 1080Older footage, some camerasKeeps more height than 16:9 for the same width
3:4 · 1080 × 1440Portraits, product shotsA softer vertical than 9:16, room for a caption below

A crop throws pixels away; it never adds any. If the frame you keep is 608 pixels wide in the source, the output cannot honestly be 1080 wide — it can only be scaled up, which softens it. The tool always tells you the real crop size before you export, so you can decide between a smaller honest file and a larger soft one.

Before the export
  • Look at the first and the last frame, not one in the middle
  • Check that no face is cut at the chin or the hairline
  • Leave a little air where a caption will sit
  • Keep the widest original
  • Export once, from the best source

Cropping questions

Does cropping a video reduce the file size?
Usually yes, because fewer pixels are encoded per frame. A 9:16 crop of a 16:9 source removes about 68% of the pixels, so a re-encode at the same quality setting produces a much smaller file.
Can I crop and change the ratio at the same time?
That is exactly what the ratio buttons do: the frame keeps the chosen shape while you move it, and the output size is calculated from the frame. Anything that does not fit is cut, never squeezed.
Why does my export look softer than the original?
Because the kept area was smaller than the output you asked for and had to be scaled up. Choose “Keep the crop size” to get exactly the pixels that were in the frame, or crop from a higher-resolution source.
Can I crop several videos the same way?
Load them one after another; the settings stay as you left them. For a fixed pipeline — the same crop for a whole series — write the numbers down once and reuse them.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The video is decoded, cropped and re-encoded inside the browser tab. Nothing is sent to a server, and the tool still works offline after the page has loaded.

Cropping Video Without Losing the Frame

Cropping is the oldest edit there is, and the easiest one to get wrong. The temptation is to fill the frame with the subject. The result is a video that feels cramped, cuts off heads, and leaves no room for the captions that every platform now expects.

Start from the destination

Before you touch the frame, decide where the clip will be watched. A vertical video fills a phone screen; a square one fits a feed; a wide one belongs on a player. Each of those is a different shape of attention, and the crop has to leave room for the interface that surrounds it: a caption bar at the bottom, a profile name at the top, a row of buttons on the right.

This is why a good crop leaves margin. The subject does not have to touch the edges; it has to survive the overlay.

Cut, then scale — never stretch

There are two operations hiding behind the word crop. Cutting removes pixels outside the frame. Scaling resamples what is left to a new size. Doing them in that order keeps the geometry intact: a circle stays a circle, a face keeps its proportions. Stretching a 16:9 image into 9:16 does the opposite and is instantly noticeable.

When the source is not wide enough for the target, the honest result is a softer image at a larger size. Upscaling cannot invent detail; it can only spread what exists. If sharpness matters, shoot or record with more resolution than you need.

Composition in a narrow frame

A vertical frame changes how people read an image. Horizontally, the eye travels left to right. Vertically, it moves up and down, which is why faces and full-body shots work better in 9:16 than landscapes do. Put the horizon near the upper third, keep the eyes above the middle, and let the lower part of the frame breathe — that is where captions land.

The rule of thirds is not decoration. It is a way to keep a moving subject from drifting into the exact centre, where a cut feels static.

What to check before exporting

Scrub through the whole clip with the crop applied, not just the frame you used to place it. A subject can walk out of a narrow frame two seconds after a perfect still. Check the entry and the exit; those are the moments that decide whether the crop works.

Then export once. Repeated crops of already-cropped files lose quality with every generation, and the original always has the options you might need later. Keep it.

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Quick facts

  1. Cropping 16:9 to 1:1 keeps 56% of the width: a 1080-pixel square out of a 1920-pixel frame.
  2. Cropping without scaling costs no quality beyond the re-encode, while cropping and zooming to fill a larger frame softens the picture.
  3. H.264 is the codec that made HD video practical on the web: it is decoded by every current browser and phone without a plugin.ITU-T
  4. Lowering the bitrate of H.264 throws away detail in fast movement first, which is why sport and confetti are the hardest scenes to compress.ITU-T
  5. A 9:16 frame is 1080 × 1920 pixels at the size TikTok, Reels and Shorts display, while 16:9 is 1920 × 1080.WHATWG

Questions people ask

How do I crop a video to a square?
Load the video, choose the 1:1 ratio, and move the crop box over the subject. The largest square from a 1920 by 1080 frame is 1080 by 1080 pixels. Export at that size to keep the picture sharp.
Does cropping a video reduce its quality?
Cropping without scaling only removes pixels, so the remaining picture stays as sharp as before, apart from the re-encode. Cropping and then enlarging to fill a bigger frame does soften the picture, because it adds pixels.
Which crop size works best for social media?
A 1:1 square suits feed posts, 4:5 portrait suits Instagram feeds, and 9:16 suits Reels, Shorts and TikTok. Choose the ratio the platform displays full-screen, and keep the subject in the centre third of the frame.

What this page is about

  • H.264 / AVC

    The video codec standardised by ITU-T as H.264 and by ISO/IEC as MPEG-4 AVC, decodeable by every current browser.

  • Vertical video

    Video framed at 9:16 for phones, where the interface of the app covers the edges of the picture.

  • WebAssembly

    A binary instruction format for the browser, standardised by the W3C, that runs code compiled from C, C++ or Rust at near-native speed.

Official sources cited on this page

  1. Recommendation H.264: Advanced video coding for generic audiovisual servicesITU-T
  2. HTML Living Standard (canvas, file input, media elements)WHATWG
  3. WebAssembly Core SpecificationW3C
  4. WebAssemblyMDN Web Docs

Continue with the same file

Each of these opens what the tool above produces. Use “Use in another tool” under the result to carry the file over — it moves from tab to tab inside your browser, never to a server.

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Switched-off tools are not listed here: only what works right now.

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