# Crop Video — TikTok, Reels, Shorts Sizes, Locally

> Crop an MP4 or MOV video to any area — drag a box or pick TikTok, Reels, Shorts (9:16), Instagram (4:5), or square sizes. Re-encoded locally, nothing uploaded.

Source: https://toolpantry.app/crop-video

## About

Drag a crop box over your video — or pick TikTok, Reels, or Instagram sizes — and export. Locally re-encoded, nothing uploaded, no watermark.

## Quick answer

How do I crop a video for free? Load the MP4 or MOV, drag a box over the preview (or press a preset like 9:16 for Shorts/Reels), then press Crop & export . The kept area is re-encoded on your device into a new MP4 — no upload, no watermark.

## Why crop instead of resize

Turning a landscape clip into a vertical video has two routes: crop (keep a vertical slice, lose the sides) or pad/zoom (keep everything, look worse). Cropping is what editors actually do for Shorts and Reels — the subject fills the frame and nothing looks stretched. This tool does that without an editor: draw the slice, export, upload.

## How to get a good crop

- **Presets first** — 9:16 places the largest vertical crop; drag it over your subject to reframe
- **Scrub to check** — play through the clip and watch what leaves the frame; if the subject moves, size the crop for their whole path
- **Leave headroom** — for talking heads, put the eyes on the upper third line (the rule-of-thirds guides are drawn on the box)
- **One generation only** — export once from the original; avoid re-cropping an already cropped file

## Honest limits

The kept area is re-encoded once (H.264 at a bitrate near the source) — this is not a lossless operation like the [video trimmer](https://toolpantry.app/video-trimmer.html) or [rotate tool](https://toolpantry.app/rotate-video.html), because the pixels must be re-arranged. Audio passes through at 128 kbps AAC. If your clip is also too big to upload, crop first, then run it through the [video compressor](https://toolpantry.app/compress-video.html) — cropping alone often already saves plenty.

## Notes

Drag inside the box to move it; drag outside to draw a new one. 9:16 = TikTok / Reels / Shorts · 4:5 = Instagram feed · 1:1 = square. Rotated phone videos are normalized automatically.

## FAQ

**How do I crop a video?**

Load the MP4 or MOV, drag a box over the preview (or pick a preset like 9:16 for Shorts), then press Crop and export. The tool re-encodes the kept area locally — nothing is uploaded.

**Can I crop a video for TikTok, Reels, or Shorts?**

Yes — pick the 9:16 preset for vertical video platforms, 4:5 for Instagram feed, 1:1 for square posts, or 16:9 for widescreen. The preset places the largest crop of that shape, and you can drag it to reframe.

**Does cropping reduce quality?**

The kept pixels are re-encoded once at a bitrate near the original, so there is one generation of encoding — far less loss than resizing or repeated edits. Nothing is upscaled, so there is no softening from stretching.

**Does the output still contain the cropped-out area?**

No. The exported file contains only the pixels inside your crop — the rest is simply not written. If you are cropping to hide something (a face, a watermark, a background), that area is genuinely gone from the new file.

**Which formats are supported?**

Input: MP4, MOV, and M4V with H.264 or HEVC video. Output: MP4 (H.264 + AAC). Rotated phone videos are normalized to their display orientation, so the crop you draw is the crop you get.