Rotate a video
Turn a clip that came out of the phone sideways, or mirror it left to right.
- Free
- Runs on your device
- No account
- No limits
One file at a time. The video is edited on your own device, so nothing is uploaded and there's no size limit beyond what your browser can hold.
How to rotate a video
- Drop a video in the box above.
- Turn it a quarter at a time until it looks right, and mirror it if you need to.
- Download. The file keeps its name and its format, with -rotated added.
- The first video also fetches the video engine, about 7MB, which your browser then keeps. After that it starts straight away.
About rotating video here
A clip that plays sideways is usually a phone recording whose rotation flag some player ignored. Turning it here bakes the rotation into the picture itself, so every player shows it the right way up rather than depending on one to read the flag correctly.
Mirroring is a separate switch from turning, because they're different jobs. Flipping left to right is what you want for footage from a front facing camera where text reads backwards. Turning is what you want when the whole picture is on its side.
This edit changes the picture, so every frame has to be decoded and encoded again. Your own machine does that work, which is what keeps the file off anybody's server, and it's why a long clip takes longer than a short one. Trimming and removing the sound are the two things here that skip it entirely.
Common questions
Is the rotate a video free?
Yes, properly free. No paid tier, no trial, no watermark on the result and nothing to sign up for. Put as many files through it as you like, as often as you like.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The rotate a video runs inside your browser, on your own machine, so your files never go anywhere. Big ones are fine too, up to whatever your browser can hold.
Why does my video play sideways on one device and not another?
Because phones record the picture in one orientation and store a flag saying which way up it should be shown. Players that read the flag get it right and players that ignore it show the raw picture on its side. Rotating it here turns the actual frames, so there's no flag left to misread and it looks the same everywhere.
Is mirroring a video the same as rotating it?
No, and mixing them up is easy. Rotating turns the whole picture round a corner, so a sideways clip stands up. Mirroring reflects it left to right, which leaves it the same way up but reverses everything across. Mirroring is what fixes footage from a front facing camera where any writing in shot reads backwards.