Which ratio for a reel?

9:16, the full phone screen. A 4:5 or 1:1 clip also plays as a reel, with bars above and below.

Does cropping lower the quality?

The picture is re-encoded at a bitrate that follows the source for the smaller frame, so the loss is hard to see. The pixels inside the frame keep their size; nothing is scaled unless you resize.

Why do I get black bars?

Because Fit was chosen in Resize video, or the clip's shape does not match the frame. Use Crop video or Cover to fill the frame instead, at the cost of the edges.

Is the video uploaded to this site?

No. Each tool reads and encodes the clip in the browser; the meter under every result shows the bytes that left the page.

Prepare a video for Instagram: ratio, crop, resize, compress

Updated November 3, 2026

Instagram shows a video in a shape that depends on where it goes: tall for stories and reels, square or slightly tall in the feed. Upload a landscape clip and the app either crops it where it wants or leaves black bars. Shaping the video yourself before uploading keeps the subject where you want it and gives Instagram a clean file to work from.

Four tools on this site do the job in order: Crop video to choose the shape, Resize video for an exact frame, Trim video for the length, Compress video for the weight. All of them run in the browser, on a phone too, without an app and without uploading the clip anywhere.

Pick the ratio first

Stories and reels are vertical, 9:16: the whole screen of a phone held upright. Feed posts take 1:1 square or 4:5 portrait, which fills more of the screen than a square while scrolling; landscape 16:9 is allowed in the feed but shows small. Instagram's exact pixel sizes change from year to year, so think in ratios and let the app scale.

Decide where the video will go before you touch it, because a 9:16 crop throws away the sides of a landscape clip for good. If the same clip goes to a reel and to the feed, make two versions from the original rather than cropping the crop.

Crop or resize: what each does

Crop video cuts a window out of the picture and keeps only what is inside: pick 9:16, 1:1 or 4:5 in the Shape list, drag the frame over the part that matters, and the result has the new shape at full sharpness, with nothing squeezed. The sound is copied as it is. Use it when the subject sits in one part of the frame.

Resize video changes the size of the whole picture. With a preset such as Instagram square or TikTok / Reels / Shorts you choose how the clip fills the frame: Fit keeps everything and adds bars in a colour you pick, Cover fills the frame and trims the edges, Fill stretches. Fit is the honest choice for a landscape clip in a vertical reel, bars and all; Cover is the same as a centred crop.

Length and weight

Short clips are watched to the end. Trim video keeps the part you choose by copying it without re-encoding, so it is quick and loses nothing; tick Precise cut when the start has to land on an exact frame. Several parts can be kept and joined in one go.

Instagram re-encodes every upload. A 4K phone clip handed to it straight is a heavy upload on mobile data and a blurry result after the app's own compression. Compress video at 1080p and Medium or High gives a clean, lighter source that the app's encoder treats well; the picture is never upscaled, so a 720p clip stays 720p.

All of it on the phone

Each tool works in the phone's browser and hands the clip to the next with Continue with, so you crop, trim and compress without downloading in between. Encoding runs on the phone's own processor; a one-minute reel takes a little while, and the finished file lands in Downloads or Files, ready for the Instagram app.

Tips

Keep text and faces away from the top and bottom of a 9:16 clip: the app draws its buttons and captions there.
Crop before resize: a crop at full resolution, then a resize to the frame, keeps the most detail.
Shoot vertical when you know it is for a story; no crop beats any crop.
Keep the original clip; export again from it when the next platform wants another shape.

Questions

Which ratio for a reel?: 9:16, the full phone screen. A 4:5 or 1:1 clip also plays as a reel, with bars above and below.
Does cropping lower the quality?: The picture is re-encoded at a bitrate that follows the source for the smaller frame, so the loss is hard to see. The pixels inside the frame keep their size; nothing is scaled unless you resize.
Why do I get black bars?: Because Fit was chosen in Resize video, or the clip's shape does not match the frame. Use Crop video or Cover to fill the frame instead, at the cost of the edges.
Is the video uploaded to this site?: No. Each tool reads and encodes the clip in the browser; the meter under every result shows the bytes that left the page.