How to rotate a video
Three different problems get called rotation, and they need different fixes.
- Sideways or upside down. Turn it 90 or 180 degrees.
- Backwards. Selfie footage where text reads in reverse. That is a mirror, not a rotation.
- Slightly tilted. The horizon is a couple of degrees off. That needs a tilt adjustment, which turns the picture and crops in so the corners do not show.
Rotate in your browser
Our editor does all three locally, with no upload:
- Drop the video in.
- Rotate right or press R for 90 degree steps. Press it twice for 180.
- Mirror or press M to flip it horizontally.
- For a tilt, press G to put a grid over the picture, then drag the Tilt slider or nudge it with the comma and full stop keys. Press 0 to reset.
- Press Export.
The grid is the part that matters for straightening. Judging a horizon by eye against the edge of a screen is unreliable. Line it up against a grid line instead.
Why a video looks right on one device and sideways on another
Video files store a rotation flag separately from the picture. Your phone sets it, and then it is up to each player whether to honour it. Apple's players usually do. Browsers and older desktop players often do not.
That is why a clip can look upright in Photos and land sideways when someone opens it on a laptop.
Exporting a rotated copy solves it permanently, because the rotation gets written into the picture itself rather than left as a note in the metadata for a player to ignore.
Questions
Does rotating a video lose quality?
A 90 or 180 degree turn is close to lossless. A tilt adjustment always re-encodes and crops slightly, because the corners have to come from somewhere.
How much can I straighten before it looks wrong?
Up to about five degrees. Beyond that the crop starts eating noticeably into the frame.
Can I rotate several clips at once?
Yes. Set the rotation on one, press A for Apply to all, then Export all.