Can iMovie Crop Video? The Answer to This Question and More

If you’re a Mac or iOS user and want to crop a video, you might be wondering if iMovie can do that. In light of the fact that it’s a free program, it makes sense to want to use it before investing money in expensive editing tools and programs, like Final Cut Pro.

It turns out that the answer to the question can iMovie crop video is a resounding YES. You CAN use a simple iMovie project for your Mac or iPhone video for simple video editing - as well as other features.

In today’s article, you’ll learn the step-by-step method for how to crop a video in iMovie on iPhone and Mac, different aspect ratios for different platforms, and how cropping differs from resizing.

The Social Media Aspect Ratios You Should Be Aware Of

Before we get started, here are some video aspect ratios you may need to use iMovie crop video for based on different platforms:

• Facebook allows users to upload videos in either landscape (16:9) or portrait (9:16) mode.
• Instagram’s classic square posts should be 1080px by 1080px (or what’s known as a 1:1 aspect ratio).
• On Twitter, videos can be uploaded directly as landscape (1:2.39) or portrait (2.39:1).
• With Snapchat, the aspect ratio is 9:16 in portrait orientation.
• For TikTok videos, the aspect ratio should be 9:16, and it usually takes up the whole screen of your phone.
• And finally, videos should be cropped to 16:9 in landscape orientation for YouTube.

You might think resizing your video would solve your aspect ratio problem. However, a crop is different from a resize. To crop an image means removing a portion of it to achieve a different size or shape. A resize maintains the entire image and simply changes the size.

When resizing rather than cropping, the video resolution will be lower resulting in a lower-quality video. But when cropping a video, you’re not simply resizing it, you’re also reframing the image as well. Here are some quick tutorials we have for you that will help you to use iMovie crop video tools and buttons on different devices...

Apple iPhone or iPad: iMovie Crop Video

Chances are when you record a video to post on social media, you don’t film it IN the app itself. Before sharing your video with your followers on your favorite platform, you probably record using the up-to-spec camera on your iPhone first. Therefore, cropping your video to fit a social media platform is likely to be a necessity.

With either Photos or iMovie, you can easily crop videos directly from your iPhone, and here’s how:

• You can crop any video in iMovie by tapping on it
• Choose the option to create a movie
• To launch the video editor, tap the timeline
• Select the magnifying glass beside the video player
• You can use your thumb and pinch-finger to zoom in and out of your movie
• After you finish, click Done

iMovie Crop Video: Mac Instructions

• You can open iMovie by clicking on the Finder tool and finding the iMovie app
• To make a new project, go to the drop-down menu and click on File, then on New Movie
• When you click on New Movie, an Import Media button will pop up. Please click on that
• You’ll be able to access your computer’s files once you click Import Media
• Click on the video you want to crop after finding it. iMovie will open the file for editing
• Drag the video file down to the iMovie timeline to add it. It will appear in the editing box in the top-right corner once it is in the timeline
• Click the crop icon, which looks like two overlapping right-angle corners.
• This button will display the cropping controls.

Within the cropping feature, you have a few cropping choices for you to choose from. Depending on how you wish to crop your video clip, you can choose whichever video crop is best for you...

iMovie Crop Video Methods Include:

• Rotate videos to turn the clip Click “Crop” in the top left corner and create a new crop. You can do this by dragging the horizontal rectangles on the outer corners in and out, up and down. Then click the blue check-mark in the upper right-hand corner to save your changes.
• To fit a typical video box, use the crop tool Crop to Fill You can create a new crop center by moving the horizontal rectangle up and down in the iMovie crop video to fill tool. You can also change the crop by grabbing one of the corners and moving it.
• Finally, you could use the “Ken Burns” feature If you’re wondering what that means or why it’s called Ken Burns, it’s because it was named after the well-known documentary filmmaker. You can crop the image here to move it through the frame in a manner similar to how he frames footage in his documentaries. Move your cursor over the checkmark in the right top corner if you are satisfied with the crop frames.

Crop Video Using iPhone Photo App

We know this article is about whether iMovie can crop video. But in case you don’t like iMovie or prefer an even simpler method, you can crop videos with the Photos app on your iPhone.

• You can crop an iPhone video by opening the Photos app
• You can then edit your video by tapping the Edit button in the upper right corner.
• At the bottom menu, you’ll find a crop icon; select it.
• Your video will be framed in a white frame. Drag the outline to the crop you want.
• Tap Done when you’re satisfied and save video

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