Cropping Videos on iPhone 8
Editing videos on your iPhone 8 could come in quite handy when you take a long video and would like to send a shorter version to someone or trim it down for yourself so that the video does not take that much iPhone drive storage.
There might also be some instances when you want to crop the video rather than shorten it. Cropping refers to selecting a particular video area and removing everything outside it. You must have seen some videos like that online from people who uploaded the media.
What are practical uses for cropping a video? Well, you may want to remove certain people from the video (though their voices might still be heard) or change the look of the video from widescreen to square-shaped.
It is also worth noting that some people might use cropping and trimming interchangeably. The words might seem like synonyms, but the reality is quite different. Trimming should be used for shortening the video length, first and foremost.
So, what are your options as an iPhone 8 owner if you want to share a video with friends or family but would like to crop some of the parts out? Let’s take a look.
Use Photos
Since you cannot use the built-in smartphone camera to crop in advance, you will need to use other methods. The Photos application is the first. Similar to how you can edit pictures in the tool, you can also make some adjustments to videos, which includes cropping.
Add a video to Photos and click the Edit button, which you can find in the top-right corner. There should be a Crop-Rotate icon. Tap on it and use your fingers to drag the video’s borders inwards until you are happy with the result.
Once you take care of the right and left corners of the video, you can do the same with the bottom and the top.
When you finish, tap Done at the bottom. In case you are unhappy with the results, you can always revert the changes and restore the video to its original form. For that, tap Edit and then Revert while in the Photos app.
Use iMovie
The iMovie app should already be available on your iPhone. If not, you can download it from the Official App Store.
To start, launch iMovie and tap the New Project tab. Then, click on the Movie tab and upload a video that you would like to crop. To continue, tap the Create Movie option that you can find at the bottom of the application’s home screen.
The video will appear in the timeline. From here, click on the mini Zoom picture that looks like a magnifying glass.
Use your fingers to pinch the video to zoom it in and out to crop it. When you finish, tap Done. You will also have to save the video manually by clicking the Save Video tab.
Does iMovie have any advantages over Photos? Well, since the software is used to edit videos, it should be a better option. One significant difference between the two is that iMovie retains original video aspect ratios. Also, some people may find the iMovie UI more convenient to use while cropping their iPhone videos or making other adjustments.
Use Video Crop
Third-party video editing software is also one of the options to crop a video on an iPhone. As expected, there are quite a few available choices, but Video Crop seems to be one of the most recognized third-party iOS applications to edit videos.
After downloading and installing the app, follow these simple steps to crop a video:
- Launch the application and give it access to the smartphone’s media. Once given access, Video Crop will let you select a video you wish to edit.
- A menu bar on the bottom of the app’s home screen will have the Crop option. Tap on it to enable a grid that will pop up on the video. Use your fingers to move the grid to crop out certain video parts.
- When you are finished, tap Done to save the changes.
Video Crop lets you share edited videos directly on social media or send them to your contacts if you wish, though you could also just save the modified video on your iPhone.
Use MacBook
Cropping a video directly on the iPhone is more convenient efficiency-wise. If you were to use a MacBook or another computer, you would first need to transfer the video to the computer, which will take some time.
Nevertheless, if you have some time to spare and prefer to use your MacBook to crop an iPhone’s video, go for it.
Some of the best software for video editing on macOS include iMovie, DaVinci Resolve 17, Blender, and Camtasia.
