Cropping removes part of the picture rather than part of the timeline. The clip runs as long as before, with the same sound, but the frame is smaller: the black bars around a letterboxed film are gone, a horizontal recording becomes a vertical one for a phone screen, or a screen capture shows only the window that matters.
Load a video, drag the box over the area to keep, optionally lock its shape to a common aspect ratio, and press Crop video. The tool shows the result size in pixels before you start, re-encodes the cropped picture in your browser and offers it for download in the same format the clip came in.
Cropping, trimming and resizing are three different edits
Trimming shortens a video in time, resizing scales the whole picture to new dimensions, and cropping cuts the frame down in space. A crop keeps every remaining pixel at its original sharpness, so the result has fewer pixels than the source: cropping a 1920 by 1080 video to a square gives at most 1080 by 1080. If a platform needs a particular size afterwards, run the cropped clip through Resize Video.
Aspect ratio is the shape of the frame, written as width to height. 16:9 is standard widescreen, 9:16 is the vertical format of Stories, Reels, Shorts and TikTok, 1:1 is a square feed post and 4:3 is the shape of older video and many slides. Locking the box to one of these keeps its shape while you move and resize it; Free lets you draw any rectangle.
Common reasons to crop a video
Turning landscape footage into a vertical clip
Choose 9:16, slide the box over the subject and crop. The result fills a phone screen without the blurred side panels that apps add to horizontal video.
Removing black bars and burned-in borders
Videos that were letterboxed or pillarboxed when someone else edited them carry the bars inside the picture. Drag the box to the visible area and they disappear for good.
Focusing a screen recording
A full-desktop capture often shows taskbars, other windows and notifications. Cropping to the application window makes the clip clearer and keeps private details out of view.
Placing the crop box precisely
The box starts centred, covering most of the frame. Drag inside it to move it and drag any of its eight handles to resize it; the darkened area shows what will be removed. With the box selected, the arrow keys nudge it, and holding Shift moves it ten times further. For exact values, type Left, Top, Width and Height in pixels: Left and Top are measured from the top-left corner of the frame, and with a locked ratio, changing the width updates the height to match. The Frame shown slider and the Play button let you check that the subject stays inside the box throughout the clip, which matters when the camera moves.
When you press Crop video, ffmpeg running inside the page as WebAssembly decodes each frame, keeps the selected rectangle and encodes the result. Width and height are rounded to even numbers, which the encoders require. MP4, MOV and MKV clips become H.264 with AAC sound, WebM becomes VP8 with Vorbis and AVI stays MPEG-4 Part 2 with MP3 sound. The converter downloads once, about 31 MB, and the output name ends in -cropped.
Comment utiliser cet outil
- Drop one MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV or AVI file on the box above, or click Choose a file.
- Pick an Aspect ratio (Free, 1:1, 4:3, 16:9 or 9:16), then drag the box and its handles, or type Left, Top, Width and Height.
- Move the Frame shown slider or press Play to check other moments of the clip.
- Press Crop video, preview the result and download it.
Limitations
- One file and one fixed crop area per run. The box cannot follow a moving subject.
- The video is re-encoded, which is slower than copying and costs a little quality.
- Positioning the box needs a preview, so use a file your browser can play: MP4 and WebM almost always work, while MKV and AVI often do not preview.
- Cropping cannot add pixels. A small crop of a low-resolution video stays small and can look soft when shown full screen.