Crop a Video for YouTube
Reframe any video to 16:9 at 1920 x 1080, the shape YouTube actually wants. Free, nothing to install.
- Free to start
- Nothing to install
- Up to 1GB
Crop for YouTube in 3 steps
Upload your video
Drag and drop a file, or click to browse. Anything under 1GB, nothing to install.
16:9 is already selected
The crop is pre-set to 16:9 for YouTube. Switch ratio in the panel if you need a different placement.
Crop and download
We process the crop on our servers. Create a free account to download.
YouTube video sizes
YouTube is built around 16:9. At 1920 x 1080 your video fills the player on a desktop, a phone held sideways and a TV app with no bars on any side.
Anything that is not 16:9 gets pillarboxed with black bars down the sides. If your source is a vertical phone recording that has to live on the main channel rather than in Shorts, crop or reframe it to 16:9 rather than uploading it tall.
Shorts are the exception: they are 9:16, capped at three minutes, and shown in a separate vertical feed. There is a dedicated Shorts crop page linked below.
Standard video
4K upload
Shorts
720p upload
| Placement | Aspect ratio | Frame size |
|---|---|---|
| Standard video | 16:9 | 1920 x 1080 |
| 4K upload | 16:9 | 3840 x 2160 |
| Shorts | 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 |
| 720p upload | 16:9 | 1280 x 720 |
Cropping is not resizing
Cropping changes what is inside the frame by cutting the edges away. Resizing keeps the whole frame and changes how many pixels it is drawn with. Going from a landscape recording to a vertical post is a crop, and something has to leave the picture.
If your video is already 16:9 and you only need it at a different resolution, use the resize tool instead, it is free too and linked below.
crop for youtube: questions
What aspect ratio does YouTube use?
16:9. 1920 x 1080 is the standard upload; 3840 x 2160 if you have a 4K source worth keeping.
Why does my YouTube video have black bars?
Because the frame is not 16:9. The player pads whatever does not fit. Cropping to 16:9 before upload removes them.
Is cropping for YouTube free?
Yes. Crop and preview for free, then create a free account to download the result.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It opens in any browser, so you can crop for YouTube from a phone as easily as from a laptop.
Does cropping reduce quality?
The kept area is cropped at source resolution and re-encoded at high quality, so it stays sharp. Cropping deep into a low-resolution source is what makes video look soft, not the crop itself.
What if my subject is not in the middle?
This tool crops from the centre, so it keeps the middle of the picture. If the subject sits to one side, open the clip in the full REQO editor, move the picture inside the new frame and export from there. That is free too.
Other presets
Everything else you can do here.
All crop video presets
Resize to a resolution
Compress for a destination
Compress a format
Rotate or flip
Change the frame rate
Change the speed
Transcribe a language
Extract audio from a format
Subtitles in another language
Convert a caption file
Need more than crop for youtube?
REQO is a full browser video editor: record, edit by transcript, caption and export.