Turn a Horizontal Video Into a Vertical One for Reels and Shorts

You filmed in landscape, as you should for YouTube or a TV, but now you want to post the clip as a Reel, a Short or a TikTok. Those are vertical 9:16 formats, and simply uploading a wide video gives you tiny letterboxed footage or an automatic crop that misses the action. Here are the two good ways to convert it.

The formats

• 9:16 vertical (1080 × 1920): Reels, Shorts, TikTok, stories.
• 4:5 portrait (1080 × 1350): Instagram feed videos that take more space than square.
• 1:1 square (1080 × 1080): feeds on several platforms.
• 16:9 landscape (1920 × 1080): YouTube, presentations, TV.

Option 1: Fit the whole picture with a blurred background

Resize Video fits the video into 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 or 16:9. With the blurred background, your full landscape picture sits in the middle and a blurred, enlarged copy fills the space above and below. Nothing is cut off, and it looks deliberate rather than letterboxed.

This is best when:

• The whole width matters, such as a landscape, a group, a presentation slide.
• There's text or action at the edges.

Option 2: Crop to the action

Crop Video cuts the picture to the shape you choose:

1. Choose 9:16 (or square, 16:9 or any size).
2. Drag the box over the part of the picture you want to keep.
3. Save.

Cropping fills the whole vertical screen, which is more immersive, but you lose the sides. It's best when the subject stays in roughly one place, such as a person talking, a product on a table or a musician.

Cropping a 1920 × 1080 video to 9:16 keeps a section about 608 pixels wide. That's fine on a phone, but noticeably softer than true vertical footage.

Trim first

Short-form platforms reward short, punchy clips. Trim the video to the best moment with Trim Video before resizing, so you're not processing minutes you won't use. Fast mode is lossless.

Keep the important parts in the safe zone

Apps place buttons, captions and your profile name over the edges of vertical videos, especially at the bottom and on the right. When cropping or adding text:

• Keep faces and key action in the middle of the frame.
• Keep text away from the bottom fifth and the right edge.
• Preview on your phone before posting.

Shoot vertical next time

If you know a video is going to be a Reel, filming vertically gives you full resolution and no compromises. If you need both formats, film landscape with your subject in the centre and plenty of space around it, so a vertical crop works too.

Common questions

Which is better, blur background or crop? Crop when the subject stays central; blur background when the edges matter. Try both on a short clip and compare on your phone.

Will the sound be kept? Yes. Only the picture is resized or cropped.

Is there a watermark? No. Your video comes out clean.

My video is long. Will it work? Yes, but it takes time, because the picture must be re-encoded. Trim it first to speed things up.

Private

Everything runs in your browser. Your video is never uploaded, so unpublished content stays on your device until you post it yourself.