Free Video Resizer

Crop or pad, and why it matters

There are two honest ways to change a video's shape, and a third that looks broken.

Crop scales the video until it covers the new frame, then cuts off whatever falls outside. Nothing is distorted and nothing is wasted, but you lose the edges — which is fine for a centred subject and ruinous if the action is at the side.

Pad scales the video until it fits inside the new frame, then fills the gap with bars. You keep every pixel of the original, at the cost of dead space.

Stretching the image to fit is the third option and this tool does not offer it. It distorts faces and nobody wants it once they see it.

Which to pick

• Crop for a centred subject. A person talking to camera, a product on a table. The edges carry nothing.
• Pad when the composition matters. Text near the edge, a wide shot, anything where the framing is the point.
• Crop for paid social. Bars read as repurposed content and cost you attention in the first second, which is the second that decides everything.
• Pad for archive or review copies, where losing part of the frame is worse than looking plain.

The sizes platforms actually want

Vertical is not a crop of horizontal, which is why reframing after the fact is always a compromise. If you know an ad is going to a vertical feed, shoot or generate it vertical from the start and skip this step entirely.

Why this one does not upload your file

Most free video tools send your file to a server, process it there and hand back a download link. That works, and it means a stranger now has a copy of your footage, kept for however long their retention policy says — which for unreleased product shots, client work or anything with a face in it is a real cost, not a theoretical one.

Here the encoder is compiled to WebAssembly and runs in this tab. The trade is honest: your laptop is slower than a server farm, so a long clip takes longer. In exchange there is no upload, no queue, no account and no copy of your video anywhere but your own disk.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my file uploaded anywhere?

No. The encoder runs inside your browser through WebAssembly, and the file never leaves your device. You can check this yourself: open your browser's network tab while it runs, or disconnect from the internet once the page has loaded — the tool keeps working.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no sign-up, no email and no watermark on the result.

Will it stretch my video?

No. Only crop and pad are offered. Stretching distorts faces and objects, and it is obvious to viewers even when they cannot say what is wrong.

Crop or pad — which should I use?

Crop if the subject is centred and the edges carry nothing, which covers most talking-head and product footage. Pad if there is text near the edge or the wide framing is the point. For paid social, crop: bars signal repurposed content.

Can I choose what gets cropped?

Not yet — the crop is centred. If the subject sits off to one side, pad instead so nothing is lost, or reframe in an editor first.

Does resizing reduce quality?

The video is re-encoded, so there is a small loss. Scaling down looks fine. Scaling a low-resolution clip up to 1080×1920 will look soft, because the detail was never there to begin with.

What colour are the bars?

Black, which is what every platform expects and the least distracting option.

Which formats are supported?

MP4, WebM and MOV go in; MP4 comes out.

Why is it slower than a site that uploads my file?

Those services encode on a server farm. This one uses your laptop. For a short clip the difference barely shows, and you skip the upload, the queue, the download, and handing your footage to someone else.