Turn a horizontal video into a vertical one for Shorts, Reels and TikTok

All three platforms use a 9:16 frame. Export at 1080×1920 pixels: it is sharp on every phone and small enough to upload quickly. Higher resolutions are accepted but are usually compressed back down, so they rarely look better on a phone.

Length limits differ between apps and change often, so check the app before you edit a long clip. Short, tight edits tend to do better anyway.

Going from 16:9 to 9:16 means keeping the middle and cutting away the sides — about two thirds of the width disappears. In the Localvert video editor, open the Canvas tab and choose 9:16. The picture fills the vertical frame from the center, and the preview shows exactly what will be kept.

Because the crop is centered, it works best when the person or object you care about is in the middle of the shot. If your subject sits near the edge, 4:5 or 1:1 keeps much more of the picture and still takes up most of a phone screen in the feed. When you film specifically for Shorts or Reels, hold the phone upright from the start; nothing beats native vertical footage.

The apps draw their own interface on top of your video: the caption and username at the bottom, like and share buttons on the right, and sometimes a header at the top. Anything you put in the bottom fifth or along the right edge may be hidden.

Place titles in the upper middle and captions in the center or slightly below it. In the editor's Text and Captions tabs, the Top, Center and Bottom positions leave a margin from the edge; for vertical videos Center is the safest choice for captions.

Vertical feeds reward clips that start fast. Trim the first seconds before anything happens, remove pauses, and split the video at the playhead (press S) to delete parts you don't need. If a clip feels slow, try 1.25× speed — but remember the voice pitch rises with it.

Choose 1080p at 30 frames per second unless your footage was shot at 60 and has fast motion. The editor encodes an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio, which all three platforms accept. If the file is too large for a chat app or email, run it through Compress video afterwards.

Everything happens in your browser: the footage isn't uploaded anywhere until you post it yourself.