How to stop iMovie from cropping video on iPad

Looking to crop a video on iMovie?

Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

How to Crop a Video in iMovie on iPhone or iPad
How to Crop a Video in iMovie on Your Mac Computer
How to Crop a Video Online using Animaker
Part 1: How to Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie on iPhone/iPad
Step 1: Load video to iMovie on iPhone or iPad.
Step 2: Enable Crop to change aspect ratio in iMovie iOS.
Step 3: Change aspect ratio in iMovie on iPhone.
Part 2: How to Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie 10 on Mac
Step 1: Launch iMovie 10 and create a new project.
Step 2: Select a clip that you want to change its aspect ratio on iMovie 10.
Step 3: Crop to change aspect ratio in iMovie on Mac.
Part 3: [Solved] Can't Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie on iPhone/iPad/Mac to More than 16:9
Step 1: Import the video.
Step 2: Change the video aspect ratio (3 ways).
Step 3: Start running.

Whether you are using iMovie on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer, we got you covered.

In this article, we show you how to crop a video using iMovie on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac with easy step-by-step instructions and pictures.

As a bonus, we’ll also show you how you can use Animaker to crop a video online using Safari or Chrome on your Mac computer. For those who aren’t aware of Animaker, it is a free online DIY video maker that can be used for anything ranging from simple tasks like trimming and cropping videos to creating full-blown animated videos directly from a web browser.

Please note that this article is about how to crop a video, which is about selecting the area of the clip you want to use or highlight while cutting out the unnecessary parts.

If you’re looking to trim or cut a video to your desired length, you can take a look at our article that covers how to cut a video, or you can use our super-simple trim video tool that doesn’t require you to read or watch a tutorial.

How to Crop a Video in iMovie on iPhone or iPad

Even though the screenshots below demonstrate how to crop a video on an iPhone, the steps are pretty much the same if you were to crop a video using iMovie on your iPad.

Here are the steps to crop a video in iMovie on your iPhone or iPad:

Open iMovie, tap on the Projects tab at the top, then tap on the button with a plus icon.
Now select Movie from the popup window.
Select a video you want to crop from your library and tap Create Movie at the bottom of the app screen.
In the timeline at the bottom, tap the video; this will bring up a button that says Pinch to zoom video—with a magnifying glass icon on it—on the top right; tap this button to start cropping the video.
Now pinch or spread your two fingers to zoom in or out and reposition the video the way you want. Once you’re done cropping, tap the Done text button in the top left corner of the app screen.

How to Crop a Video in iMovie on Your Mac Computer

If you’re on a Mac computer and want to use iMovie to crop a video, follow the below steps:

Open iMovie and click on the button with the plus icon that says Create New.
Now select Movie from the dropdown menu.
Click on the Import Media button and select the video you want to crop.
Once the video’s been imported, click on the Cropping button in the toolbar right above the video player. This will reveal a button that says Crop in the top left corner of the player; click on it to start cropping your video.
Now click and drag one of the handlebars to select the area you want to crop.
Once you’re done selecting the part you want to use, click on the blue checkmark button in the top right corner to save the changes you made.

How to Crop a Video Online using Animaker

If you’re looking to crop your video using a simple tool that works in your browser, then it would be worth giving Animaker’s Crop Video Tool a shot.

Not only does it let you quickly crop your video online, but it also helps you crop your video in dimensions that are recommended by most social media platforms out there. To crop a video using Animaker, follow these steps:

Sign up or log into the app. Now pick the dimensions you’d like to crop your video to, like square, vertical, horizontal, etc. Do you want your video to be in square dimensions? Then, from your dashboard, pick Square under the Create a video section. You can also use the Custom Size button to crop your video to custom dimensions.
Now upload the video you want to crop. To upload your video, go to the Upload tab in the main navigation bar, then click on the Upload button at the bottom of the tab window.

Once it’s been uploaded, click on it to set it onto the square, vertical or horizontal canvas, depending on the size you chose in the previous step.
Click on the Crop button to select the part you want to use. Hold and drag the edges of the selection to scale or shrink it, and adjust its position so it fits the dimensions the way you want it to. Once done, click on the green button that says Apply to save the changes.
Now preview the video to see if any adjustments would need to be made. Click on the preview button next to the publish button in the top right corner of the app screen; if everything seems fine, go ahead and click on the Publish button, then select Download Video from the dropdown menu to download your cropped video.

If you’re also looking for other ways to edit your video like trim, rotate, flip, mute, or adjust the video, you can do all that and more using Animaker; just explore the app further. Pretty sure you’d fall in love with its intuitive interface 🙂

Got any questions on cropping your video? Any tips or tools to crop a video that you find interesting and would like to share with us? Please let us know about them in the comment section below.

Crop video automatically when adding it to a project

Sometimes when you add video from multiple sources to a project, all the video doesn’t fit within the aspect ratio that you’ve assigned to the project. To address this issue, you can set iMovie to automatically crop added video to fit the aspect ratio, or to fit added video within the frame, even if it causes letterboxing (black bands on the top and bottom of the video frame) or pillarboxing (black bands on the sides of the video frame).

To automate cropping:

Select a project in the Project Library, or open a project, and then choose File > Project Properties.
The File menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.
Choose one of the following from the Initial Video Placement pop-up menu at the bottom of the pane:
- Crop: Fills the frame with as much video as possible, though the entire video image may not fit within the aspect ratio you’ve set for the project.
- Fit in Frame: Fits the whole video into the project’s aspect ratio, even if it causes letterboxing or pillarboxing.

Summary: In this post, you'll know how to change aspect ratio in iMovie on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Besides 1:1 to 16:9, you can also change to wide screen 20:9, 19.5:9, 18.5:9 to create cinematic videos, 1080p to 4K 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 etc., using VideoProc Converter.

Do you have a 1:1 video saved from your friend's share on your iPhone, and you wish to post it to YouTube without being cropped or stretched? Do you want to create a square video for IGTV on iPad? Do you wish to share a 16:9 iPhone recording on TikTok without black bars? The good news, you can easily achieve these goals by simply changing the aspect ratio. Even better, iOS and macOS users can change aspect ratio in iMovie on iPhone, iPad, and Mac in easy steps.

Part 1: How to Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie on iPhone/iPad

Honestly speaking, it's as easy as ABC to change aspect ratio in iMovie on iPhone or iPad. It's just that you might fail to find the feature therein, unless you have read iMovie tutorial or have certain experience on it. It's somewhere veiled. Anyway, follow the below guide to change the aspect ratio in iMovie on iPhone and iPad.

Step 1: Load video to iMovie on iPhone or iPad.

Fire up iMovie on your iPhone, click Projects > + Create Project > choose Movie in the New Project window. Then tap Create Movie to import video from iPhone to iOS iMovie.

Import a Video to iMovie on iPhone

Step 2: Enable Crop to change aspect ratio in iMovie iOS.

Pitch on the video timeline section as the below picture shows after your input is successfully imported. Afterward, the hidden video editing toolbox will show up under the timeline section, together with a magnifier icon with >Pinch to zoom> text in the upper right corner.

Step 3: Change aspect ratio in iMovie on iPhone.

Click the magnifier icon and then you're allowed to pinch to zoom your iPhone video and change aspect ratio using your fingers. When it's completed, hit Done. Now select the sharing button (with an upwards arrow in a box) > tap Save Video to download the video to your iPhone camera roll.

Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie on iPhone

However, we suggest you come over to Part 3 to change aspect ratio without limits or information loss, because:

You can only change aspect ratio to 16:9 in iMovie app on iPhone or iPad.
iMovie for iOS doesn't offer the specific aspect ratio options (3:4, 1:1, 9:16, etc.) for you to choose from.
iMovie changes aspect ratio by cropping the video on iPhone. This might delete some important details from your video.

Part 2: How to Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie 10 on Mac

Let's start by making sure we're all on the same page. Apple has already canceled the Aspect Ratio option in iMovie 10 Project Properties. While you still can Google the answers that say go to "File > Project Properties > Aspect Ratio", and change the aspect ratio to 16:9 or 4:3 in iMovie for Mac. However, it is invalid on your Mac. The only workable solution is to crop video to change aspect ratio in iMovie 10, but at a fixed aspect ratio of 16:9.

If you need to change video aspect ratio to more than 16:9, you'd better jump to Part 3.

Step 1: Launch iMovie 10 and create a new project.

When iMovie is launched, you should start with creating a new project. Head over to the Plus icon in the top-left corner > select the Movie Mode > choose a template for your footage.

Create a new project in iMovie

Step 2: Select a clip that you want to change its aspect ratio on iMovie 10.

Select a clip from the Project Media or in the timeline area > head to the Crop option in the toolbar above the viewer.

Select a clip to crop in iMovie

Step 3: Crop to change aspect ratio in iMovie on Mac.

If you're going to crop a clip from the Project Media, you will select the Crop button at the top-left of the viewer > select an area you want to crop with the white rectangle on the viewer > and click the Blue Tick in the top-right corner to apply the change on the video aspect ratio.

If you're going to crop a clip in the timeline, you will select the Crop to Fill at the top-left of the viewer > select an area you want to crop with the white rectangle on the viewer > and click the Blue Tick in the top-right corner to apply your works.

Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie on Mac

Part 3: [Solved] Can't Change Aspect Ratio in iMovie on iPhone/iPad/Mac to More than 16:9

If you want to change aspect ratio to more than 16:9, or you don't want to alter the aspect ratio by cropping the video, then iMovie can't do that for you. Now what? No worry, simply import your clips to the MacOS computer, and you can use VideoProc Converter – the best iMovie alternative that's capable of changing aspect ratio to more than 16:9 without cropping. See it's some of its killer features:

More video aspect ratio options to choose from 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:3, 4:5, 2:1, 2:3, 2.35:1, 2.21:1, etc.
Resize videos for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and more.
Change aspect ratio without cropping or quality loss.

Step 1: Import the video.

Tap the Video icon, select + Video at the main menu, and then load the source video to the software.

Import an iPhone video to VideoProc Converter

Step 2: Change the video aspect ratio (3 ways).

Method 1. Change aspect ratio without cropping and distortion (recommended).

Move to Video Codec Options > Resolution > Custom. Take converting aspect ratio from 16:9 to 1:1 of a 1280x720 video as an example here. Manually set the resolution to 1280x1280 > check the Expand Video box > Done and RUN. Remember the aspect ratio should be kept original.

Change aspect ratio without cropping

Method 2. Change aspect ratio without cropping.

Find and click Codec Option button at the right corner of the video info bar. In the pop-up video parameter settings window: go to Video Codec Options > Aspect Ratio, and choose an aspect ratio by unfolding the options.

Change video aspect ratio directly

Method 3. Change aspect ratio by cropping.

Navigate to the primary video editing interface. Hit Crop > Enable Crop > Preset, and then you choose an aspect ratio in the dropdown list. You can drag the cropping box on the preview window to decide the partial that you want to crop off.

Change aspect ratio by cropping

Step 3: Start running.

Now give the last hit on the RUN button, and VideoProc Converter's processing engine will go into action to change your iPhone video aspect ratio. If your engine allows, enable GPU hardware acceleration to boost the speed. Seconds or minutes later, you would get your desired outputs.

In addition, VideoProc Converter does it well in both features and ease of use. Other than changing aspect ratio, you can crop, cut, and rotate video. Want magic refining? Denoise, stabilization, and filter options are at your disposal. Best of all, it allows you to re-encode large videos in 4K to make the file smaller.

Free Download For Win 7 or later

Free Download For Mac OS X 10.6 or later