What is the difference between crop to fill and fit with bars?

Crop to fill scales the video until it covers the whole output frame and cuts off whatever hangs over: no bars, but you lose the edges. Fit with bars scales it until it fits inside the frame and pads the rest with black: nothing lost, but a landscape clip in a vertical frame ends up as a small strip in the middle. For talking heads and gameplay, crop. For anything with text at the edges, fit.

Which size should I use for Instagram?

Reels and Stories are 9:16 at 1080 by 1920. Feed posts show best at 4:5 (1080 by 1350), which takes more screen than a square. Square 1:1 still works everywhere and is the safe pick for carousels that mix photo and video. YouTube Shorts and TikTok are 9:16 as well, so one vertical export usually covers all three.

Is the video uploaded anywhere?

No. The resize is done by your browser using WebCodecs, the same hardware encoder your operating system uses. The file is read from disk, reframed in memory and handed back as a download. Unreleased footage stays unreleased.

Does resizing reduce quality?

Scaling down is close to lossless to the eye; the re-encode that has to follow is where a little quality goes. The tool encodes at a high bitrate so the output looks like the source. If you also need to hit a size limit, run the result through the video compressor afterwards.

Can I resize a vertical video to landscape for YouTube?

Yes, pick 16:9. Crop to fill will cut the top and bottom, which usually removes heads and captions, so Fit with bars is the sensible choice going that direction. Better still, add a blurred copy behind it in an editor, but a padded export is fine for a quick upload.

Free Tool

Video Resizer

Reframe a video to 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, 4:5 or 1:1 for the feed, or 16:9 for YouTube. Crop to fill or fit with bars. Runs in your browser, nothing uploaded.

9:16 · 1:1 · 4:5 · 16:9No uploadNo watermarkUp to 500 MB

Drop a video to resize

MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV up to 500 MB. It never leaves your device.

Crop or pad: the only decision that matters

Every platform tells you its numbers, and they are easy: 1080 by 1920 for anything vertical, 1080 by 1350 for the Instagram feed, 1080 by 1080 for a square, 1920 by 1080 for YouTube. The numbers are not the problem. The problem is that a 16:9 clip has to lose two thirds of its width to become 9:16, and something has to decide which two thirds.

Crop to fill makes that decision for you by keeping the centre. It is right far more often than it is wrong, because cameras and phones put the subject in the middle, and it is what viewers expect: no black bars, the frame is full, the video looks native to the app. It goes wrong when the important thing is off centre, or when there is text at the edges. Fit with bars is the other answer: nothing is lost, but a landscape clip becomes a small strip in the middle of a vertical frame, which reads as repurposed content. Watch the source once before you choose.

Whichever you pick, the resize is done on your machine. The browser decodes the video, scales and crops each frame, and re-encodes it with the hardware encoder, then hands you the MP4. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no queue and no watermark, and footage you have not published yet stays that way.

Frequently asked questions

Aspect ratios, crop versus fit, and platform sizes

Drop the video in, pick 9:16 and leave the fit on Crop to fill. The tool scales the video so it covers a 1080 by 1920 frame and trims the left and right edges equally, which is what every phone app does when you pinch to fill. Keep the subject near the centre of the source or switch to Fit with bars to keep every pixel.

More free tools

Video compressorHit a Discord, WhatsApp or email size limit exactly. Same engine, nothing uploaded.

Video trimmerCut the start or end of a clip before you post it.

Aspect ratio calculatorGet exact output dimensions and see what a crop removes.

Safe zone checkerSee where the TikTok, Reels and Shorts UI covers your frame.

The full product

One Reframed Clip is just the start. Automate your whole faceless channel

Faceless makes the whole video vertical from the start: script, voice, visuals and captions composed for 9:16, then posted to Reels, TikTok and Shorts on a schedule.