How to Crop Videos for Social Media: A Platform-by-Platform Guide

You've shot a great video, but it doesn't quite fit the platform you want to post it on. The sides get cut off on TikTok, or there are awkward black bars on Instagram. Sound familiar? Let's fix that.

The Quick Reference

Here's what you actually need to know for each platform:

TikTok and Reels: The Vertical Video Era

Both platforms want 9:16 vertical video. If you filmed horizontally (like most of us do by default), you've got some decisions to make.

The most common approach is to crop into the center of your footage. This works well when your subject is centered, but you'll lose about 44% of the frame width. That's a lot.

Before you start cropping, scrub through your video. Is there a particular area where the action happens? Maybe your subject moves around the frame. With most cropping tools, you can position the crop region to capture what matters most, even if it's not dead center.

Instagram Feed: Square or Portrait?

Instagram's feed is interesting because you have options. Square (1:1) used to be the only choice, but now 4:5 portrait videos are often a better pick. They take up more screen real estate as people scroll, which means more attention on your content.

That said, square still works great for certain content—particularly anything with text overlays or graphics that you want evenly balanced.

YouTube: The Horizontal Holdout

Regular YouTube videos are still 16:9 horizontal, and that's not changing anytime soon. If you filmed vertically and want to post to YouTube proper (not Shorts), you've got a tougher situation. Your options are:

• •Black bars on the sides (simple, but looks amateur)
• •Blurred/zoomed background of the same video (popular, but busy)
• •Post as a Short instead (often the right call for short content)

There's no perfect solution for converting vertical to horizontal. The best approach is usually to plan your shoot format ahead of time.

Twitter/X: Flexibility Wins

Twitter is the most forgiving platform for video dimensions. It accepts pretty much anything from 1:1 to 16:9. The timeline will display your video appropriately either way.

That said, horizontal 16:9 tends to perform slightly better because it fills more of the tweet card. Square is a close second.

Actually Cropping the Video

Now that you know what dimensions you need, here's the practical part. You've got a few options:

Browser-based tools are the quickest for one-off crops. You don't install anything, and your video never leaves your device. Just upload, position the crop, and export.

Desktop editors like DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro give you more control, but they're overkill if all you need is a quick crop.

Mobile apps are convenient when you're working from your phone, but they often compress your video more than you'd like.

A Note on Quality

Every time you crop and re-export a video, there's some quality loss from re-encoding. It's usually not noticeable, but if you're working with footage that's already been compressed heavily, keep it in mind.

Start from the highest quality source you have. If you still have the original file from your camera or phone, use that instead of something you've already exported once.

Wrapping Up

Getting video dimensions right isn't glamorous, but it makes a real difference in how your content looks. A video that fills the screen properly just looks more professional than one with awkward black bars or chopped-off edges.

The good news is that with the right tool, cropping takes about 30 seconds. Give it a try and see how quick it can be.