Crop a Video
Draw a box over the frame and keep just that region of an MP4, right in your browser. Runs entirely in your browser, so your data never leaves your device.
Drop an MP4 here, or click to browse
Up to 5 GB · crop by drawing a box · never leaves your device
Output
Draw a box over the video and press Crop video; the cropped clip appears here.
Your videos never leave this tab
Crop a Video is JavaScript that your browser has already downloaded, and it does the whole job on your own machine. On a normal site, a 5 GB video means 5 GB uploaded, a wait in somebody's queue, and 480 MB downloaded again. Here it means 0 bytes up and 0 bytes down.
- No upload
- No file size limit
- Works offline once loaded
- Nothing stored or logged
How to use Crop a Video
- 1. Upload the MP4 and let it open in the player. Drop or browse for the .mp4 file. It opens in a player with a crop overlay on top, and the tool reads the video's dimensions and rotation instantly. Files up to 5 GB work, and nothing ever leaves your device.
- 2. Draw the crop box over the region to keep. Drag anywhere on the frame to draw a box; everything outside it is shaded and will be cut away. Move the box by dragging inside it, fine-tune with the eight edge and corner handles, or pick a preset like 1:1, 16:9 or 9:16 to lock the shape. The chip on the box shows the exact output size in pixels.
- 3. Crop and download the result. Press Crop video. The whole clip is re-encoded to just the selected region, using your device's hardware encoder when available, and the audio is kept as is. Preview the result and download the cropped MP4.
When to use Crop a Video
Crop a Video cuts an MP4 down to a rectangular region you draw over the frame, entirely in your browser with no upload. Use it whenever the interesting part of the picture only fills part of the frame, or the video needs a different shape.
- Turning landscape footage into a vertical clip. Lock the 9:16 preset, slide the box over the subject, and a widescreen recording becomes a portrait video ready for shorts, reels and stories.
- Cutting a screen recording down to one window. Draw the box around the app you were demonstrating so viewers are not distracted by the rest of the desktop, notifications or bookmarks.
- Removing black bars or unwanted edges. Letterboxed exports and captures with a sliver of another screen along one edge get cleaned up by cropping to just the real picture.
- Reframing a fixed camera shot. A webcam or tripod clip where the subject sits in one corner becomes a tighter, better composed shot by cropping to that corner, no video editor required.
Examples
Reframe a screen recording
Input
screen-recording.mp4 + a box drawn around the app window
Output
a video showing only the window, with the desktop cut away
Make a vertical clip
Input
match.mp4 (1920x1080) + the 9:16 preset centered on the action
Output
a 608x1080 portrait crop ready for shorts and stories
About the Crop a Video tool
Crop a Video does its work locally, right in the browser. Draw a box over the frame and keep just that region of an MP4, right in your browser. There is no upload step, no queue and no account, and your data never travels over the network.
It belongs to the Video Tools collection on EditSafely, a set of 12 small, focused Video utilities that share the same instant, private workspace.
There is nothing to configure. Provide the input and the result appears on its own. The finished file is put together in browser memory and saved with the Download button, so it never touches a server on the way to your disk. 2 worked examples further down the page show exactly what the tool produces for real inputs.
Running locally also makes the tool fast and dependable: results appear as you type or drop a file, there is no server outage that can take it down mid-task, and confidential data can be processed without a second thought.
Frequently asked questions
Is Crop a Video free to use?
Yes, it is completely free. All 2,671 tools on EditSafely work without an account, a subscription or usage limits.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
Everything happens locally. Your browser downloads the tool's code once, then does all the processing itself; nothing you enter is transmitted, stored or logged. You can even go offline after the page loads and it will still work.
Which files does Crop a Video accept?
It accepts MP4 videos. There is no file size cap imposed by a server; very large files are limited only by your device's memory.
Do I need to sign up or install anything?
No. The tool works in any modern browser on desktop, tablet or phone. There is no account to create, no extension to add and no software to install.
How do I save the output?
Click the Download button once the result is ready. The file is built in your browser's memory and handed straight to your downloads folder, without passing through a server.