How to uncrop a video: undo a crop or widen the frame

You can uncrop a video only in the app that cropped it, because most video editors store a crop as an edit and keep the full frame. In Photos on iPhone, iPad or Mac, open the video and choose Revert to Original, even after saving. In iMovie, Clipchamp and CapCut, reset the crop in your project. A video that was exported, downloaded or sent after cropping holds only the visible area, so the most you can do is widen the frame with bars or a blurred background.

How to uncrop a video: quick answer by app

Where the video was cropped	How to undo the crop	Works after saving?
Photos on iPhone or iPad	Open the video, tap More, then Revert to Original	Yes
Photos on Mac	Edit, then Revert to Original in the toolbar	Yes
iMovie on Mac	Select the clip, click the Cropping button, then Reset and Apply	Yes, inside the project
iMovie on iPhone	Tap the clip, tap the Zoom Control button and pinch to zoom out	Yes, inside the project
Google Photos on Android	Save made a copy, so open the original next to it	The original is kept
Samsung Gallery	Revert > Revert to original while editing	Samsung does not say for videos
Windows Photos	It does not crop videos, only trims them	See Clipchamp below
Clipchamp	Click undo, or add the same asset from the media tab again	Yes, inside the project
CapCut on a phone	Tap Reset on the crop screen	CapCut’s guide does not say
Exported, downloaded or sent video	Cannot be undone	Widen the frame instead

We checked these steps in November 2026 against the current help from Apple (iOS 27 and macOS 27), Google, Samsung, Microsoft and CapCut. Revert to Original in Photos undoes every edit on the video, including trims and filters, not only the crop, so reapply anything you want to keep.

How to uncrop a video on iPhone and iPad

Photos on iPhone crops a video by its corners or to a preset such as Square, Wallpaper, 9:16 or 5:7 (Apple). It keeps the original of every video you edit in it, so a crop made there can be undone at any time:

1. Open the Photos app and the cropped video.
2. Tap More (the three dots).
3. Tap Revert to Original (Apple).

Apple’s crop guide gives a second route: open the video, tap Edit, then tap Revert (Apple). The iPad steps are the same (Apple). With iCloud Photos, edits are saved across all your devices (Apple), so a video you revert on your iPhone goes back to the full frame on your iPad and Mac too.

If you have not saved yet, tap the undo arrow at the top of the screen to step back (Apple), or tap Cancel, then Discard Changes (Apple). Tapping the video while you edit shows the original for comparison.

When Revert to Original is missing

Revert only undoes edits that Photos made itself. It is not there, or brings back nothing, when:

• The video arrived already cropped. A clip saved from TikTok, Instagram, a chat or a website is the version someone else published, so Photos has nothing earlier to return to.
• Another app made the crop. If you cropped the video in CapCut or iMovie and saved the export to Photos, go back to that app’s project instead.
• You deleted the original. Recently Deleted keeps photos and videos for 30 days before they are removed for good (Apple).

Next time, make a spare first: open the video, tap More, then Duplicate, and a copy appears next to the original in your library (Apple). Crop one and keep the other whole.

How to uncrop a video on Mac

Photos on a Mac crops videos with the same Crop tool as photos, and Apple says that applying adjustments to a video doesn’t change your original footage, so you can return to the original look at any time (Apple).

• While you crop: click Reset to cancel the crop (Apple), or click Revert to Original to stop cropping without saving your changes (Apple).
• After you saved: double-click the video, click Edit, then click Revert to Original in the toolbar. Apple says it removes all adjustments made to the video (Apple).

Trims are safe in the same way: Apple says trimming a video doesn’t actually delete footage, and you can recover any trimmed video later (Apple). A copy you already exported has the crop built into the new file, so revert the video in Photos and export it again.

Undo a crop in iMovie on Mac and iPhone

iMovie crops a clip inside your project, and Apple documents how to put it back.

On a Mac:

1. In iMovie, select the clip in the timeline.
2. Click the Cropping button to show the cropping controls.
3. Click Reset, then click the Apply button (Apple).

Apple says Reset clears all crop and rotation adjustments, including a crop you applied in the browser before you added the clip to the timeline (Apple). Two other buttons in the same controls matter:

• Fit puts the entire image in the frame, with black bars at the top and bottom or at the sides if the clip’s shape differs from your movie’s. It also removes a Ken Burns effect (Apple), and it restores a 4:3 clip that iMovie cropped automatically to fill a 16:9 project (Apple).
• Crop to Fill is the button that crops, with a frame locked to 16:9 (Apple).

On an iPhone: iMovie sets a zoom level for a video clip rather than a crop. Open the project, tap the clip in the timeline, tap the Zoom Control button in the viewer, then pinch to zoom out and drag the picture until it is framed the way you want (Apple). Photos in a project get the Ken Burns effect, which you turn off by tapping Ken Burns Enabled (Apple).

A movie you already exported or shared from iMovie is a new file with the crop in it. Change the project and export it again.

How to uncrop a video on Android

Google Photos. After you crop a video, Google’s help says that Save saves a copy of the video with your edits (Google). Because it makes a copy, the uncropped original should still be in your library next to it. Google’s video help does not describe a Revert button for videos the way its photo help does. If you deleted the original, it stays in the trash for 30 days before it is permanently deleted (Google).

Samsung Gallery. Samsung lists Transform, with Flip, Rotate, Ratio and Adjust angle, among the options for editing photos and videos in the Gallery app (Samsung). While you edit, Revert > Revert to original starts over, and More options (the three dots) > Save as copy keeps the original. Samsung writes those two steps for pictures, and its pages do not say whether a saved video edit can be reverted later (Samsung). Open the video, tap the Edit icon (the pencil) and look for Revert. If it is not there, look for an uncropped copy in the Gallery.

Other editors. A video editor that exports a new file does not change the video you started from, so the original you imported should still be in your gallery.

How to uncrop a video on Windows

The Photos app in Windows does not crop videos. Microsoft’s help says it can trim a video, and points you to the Clipchamp video editor for advanced editing. When you trim in Photos, Save as Copy keeps the original, while Save in the drop-down overwrites it (Microsoft).

To undo a crop in Clipchamp (Microsoft):

1. Open the project with the cropped clip.
2. Click the undo button to undo the cropping changes.
3. If undo no longer reaches the crop, delete the clip from the timeline and drag the same asset from the media tab onto the timeline again.

The fill button in the same toolbar removes black borders so the asset fits the video’s aspect ratio (Microsoft). If a clip lost its edges after you used it, undo that step too. An MP4 you exported from Clipchamp holds only what you saw in the preview, so fix the project and export again.

How to undo a crop in CapCut

CapCut’s own guide describes cropping in the phone app: tap Edit (the scissors icon), swipe and tap Edit again, then choose Crop from Mirror, Rotate and Crop. On that screen, tap the checkmark to keep the crop, or tap Reset, which CapCut says takes you back to the original video so you can crop again (CapCut).

The guide does not explain how to remove a crop after you leave that screen, and it does not say what happens to the file in your gallery. It does recommend keeping a backup of the original footage (CapCut). A video you exported from CapCut contains only the crop, so go back to the project, or start again from the original clip.

When a video crop cannot be undone

A crop becomes permanent once the cropped picture is encoded into a new file. That happens when:

• You export or save a new video from an editor such as iMovie, Clipchamp or CapCut, or from an online cropper. Our video cropper works this way on purpose: it encodes only the pixels inside your crop box, so nothing outside it is in the new file.
• You download a video someone posted, or save it from a social app. You get the version they published, not their original.
• You send or receive it in a chat app. WhatsApp says media files are usually compressed when shared, and that its default limit for video on faster connections is 100 MB at 720p (WhatsApp). What arrives is a new copy of the video as it looks after the crop.

In each case, the pixels outside the crop are not in the file, so no player, app or AI tool can bring them back. Look for the original instead: in the editor’s project, in Recently Deleted on an iPhone or the Google Photos trash (30 days in both), on the camera or phone that filmed it, or from the person who sent it.

Can someone uncrop a video you sent?

Usually not. A cropped video sent as a normal video in Messages, Mail or a chat app holds only the cropped frame. The exceptions are shares that carry your original, such as AirDrop from an iPhone with All Photos Data turned on, which Apple says shares the original file with its edit history (Apple), and a few video files that hide cut edges instead of removing them. Our guide can someone uncrop a photo you sent covers each case for photos and videos, and how to send a cropped video safely.

How to widen a video instead of uncropping it

When the cut-off part is gone, you can still give the video a new shape without cutting any more away. Fit the whole frame into the new shape, then fill the space that is left:

Method	What fills the space	Keeps the whole picture?	Good for
Black, white or color bars	A plain color	Yes	Slides, screen recordings, anything with text
Blurred background	A soft, enlarged copy of the video itself	Yes	Reels, Shorts, Status, people and travel
Crop to fill	Nothing: the edges are cut off	No	Action that stays in the middle of the frame
AI video outpainting	New picture generated around the frame	Yes, with invented edges	Not offered on uncrop.si

Our free horizontal to vertical video tool does the first two. It places the whole video in a 9:16, 4:5, 1:1 or 16:9 frame over a blurred copy of itself, or over black, white or a color you pick, so nothing is cut off and nothing is generated. It opens MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV files and saves an H.264 MP4 at 1080p or 720p. The video is processed in your browser and never uploaded, and there is no watermark, account or daily limit.

1. Open horizontal to vertical video and tap Choose a video.
2. Under Shape, pick 9:16 for a phone held upright, 4:5 or 1:1 for a feed post, or 16:9 to make a vertical video wide.
3. Under Background, pick Blurred video, or Black, White or Color.
4. Check the preview, press Make the 9:16 video (the button names the shape you picked), keep the tab open while it works, then press Download.

A blurred background suits people, scenery and busy scenes. Behind slides, screen recordings and text, a plain color usually reads better, because a blurred copy of text turns into smudges. If the action stays in one part of the frame, cropping may suit better: our video cropper lets you place a 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 or 16:9 box over it.

For a still from the video, such as a thumbnail, save the frame with video to JPG and give it a new shape with change aspect ratio. That tool works on images only, and it can fill the new edges with blur, a color, mirrored edges, Texture fill or an AI fill.

What about AI video outpainting?

Some video editors and online AI services can generate new picture around the edges of a video, the way AI photo extenders do with photos. Everything they add is invented, frame by frame, so it is never the footage that was outside your crop. uncrop.si does not offer AI video uncrop. Its video tools run on your device and only place your video on a blurred copy of itself or a plain color. Apple describes its Extend tool in Photos for photos only (Apple).

Tips and troubleshooting

• Revert undid my other edits too. Revert to Original in Photos goes all the way back. Reapply your trim, filter or speed changes, or duplicate the video before you edit next time.
• Our tools say they cannot open an iPhone video. iPhones can record in HEVC, which some browsers cannot decode. The tool says so before anything runs; open the page in Chrome or Safari instead.
• You need the whole video on a vertical app. The horizontal to vertical video page covers the sizes for Reels and Shorts, the WhatsApp status video tool also splits a long video into parts of up to 90 seconds, and our guide to making a horizontal video vertical walks through the choices.
• The crop was on a photo, not a video. The same rules apply. See can you uncrop a photo? and how to uncrop a photo on iPhone.