How to Crop a Video on Mac: Beginner’s Guide in 2022

When talking about cropping a video, the first thing that comes to mind is “trimming”. In reality, trimming and cropping are two different things. While trimming reduces the duration of a video, cropping decreases the size of the video.

Trimming a video is easy since the majority basic video editing tool has this function. The same goes for adding effects. You can even add effects on videos using your Camera through filters. What’s really hard is learning how to crop a video on Mac, or on other devices for that matter. Below are some of the best ways to crop a video on your Mac computer.

Contents: Part 1. How Do I Crop a Video on Mac?Part 2. How Do You Crop a Video on Mac without iMovie?Part 3. Conclusion

Part 1. How Do I Crop a Video on Mac?

There are numerous tools out there that can crop a video and is compatible with Mac: QuickTime, iMovie, VLC, and more. Let’s start with QuickTime.

1. Crop a Video on Mac Using QuickTime

Although we said that QuickTime can crop a video, it actually cannot. The best it can do is trimming the video, but it can’t resize it. However, there is a trick, and this trick involves using a mask. Without further ado, let’s start with the steps:

1. On an image editing tool like Preview, create a box that is 400px wide and 200px high and fill it with only white.
2. Open the QuickTime Player on your computer.
3. On the media player, create a mask and resize it so that it’s as large as the video that you’re trying to crop. This time, it should be all black.
4. Click the Movie Properties tab from the menu bar.
5. Add the 400x200 white box into the project.
6. Move the box into the area that you want to keep.
7. Click Save As.

By doing this, you can do what most video editors didn’t think is possible, crop a video on QuickTime. The next tools that we’ll use will be a lot simpler because they have their own crop function.

2. Crop a Video on Mac with iMovie

iMovie is capable of freezing frames ad cropping the videos to the size that you want. This is quite handy if your video does not fit the ration of the project. Here’s how to crop a video on Mac using iMovie:

1. Open the iMovie app on the Mac computer.
2. Select the clip that you want to crop and add it to the timeline.
3. Click on the Crop button which is represented by the usual square icon with lines outside.
4. Now resize the video as you like but make sure the Crop to Fill option is enabled.
5. Finally, click on the Apply button at the top-right corner of the window.

As you can see, learning how to crop a video on Mac using iMovie is quite simple, compared to that when you used QuickTime. You can also discard changes if you made a mistake by clicking Reset.

3. Crop a Video on Mac in VLC

Just like QuickTime, VLC is also a media player with several other functions. Now it just so happens that one of its functions is cropping. Below are the steps on how you can do this:

1. Open the VLC media player.
2. Click on Media from the menu bar and select Open File.

Note: You can simply press Ctrl+O on your keyboard for a shortcut.

3. Now go to Tools this time and select Effects and Filters, or press Ctrl+E.
4. On the Adjustment and Effects window, go to the Video Effects tab.
5. Head to the Crop tab.
6. Enter the number of pixels that you want to crop on each side.
7. Click on Media again and this time, select Convert/Save.

Part 2. How Do You Crop a Video on Mac without iMovie?

The main problem with learning how to crop a video on Mac is that most video editors are available only to Windows users. Although you have the option to use the tools above, there’s a chance that your video won’t be compatible with the tool, but that shouldn’t be the case for iMyMac Video Converter.

iMyMac Video Converter is a tool that has the ability to convert files. But what’s really interesting about this software is that it also consists of other functions, including cropping videos. Below is a closer look at its most notable features:

• Video Editing. iMyMac is not only capable of conversion, but you’ll also find numerous functions within the platform. Aside from video editing tools, you can also fix issues like overexposure, vibration, and the likes
• Format Conversion. iMyMac Video Converter is capable of converting different formats such as M4V, MP4, AIFF, WAV, and many more. As such, you don’t have to worry about your videos not being supported by the tool
• Acceleration Technology. Hardware acceleration technology is utilized to make functions a lot faster. This applies to conversion, video editing, and downloading
• Supported Resolutions/Quality. If for some reason, you don’t like the current resolution of your videos, you can always use a more suitable video with qualities ranging from 480P to 4K

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Follow the steps below on how to crop a video on Mac using iMyMac Video Converter:

Step 1. Add Video

Open the iMyMac Video Converter on your Mac computer. You will be greeted with a clean interface. Simply drag and drop the videos that you want to edit.

Step 2. Crop Video

Upon adding the files, numerous buttons will appear on the interface, one of which is the Crop button. Simply click this button. Now make the edits that you want for the video. Once you’re done, click on Save.

Step 3. Convert Video

After cropping, click the Convert button on the right side of the interface, although you can also change other settings first. Either way, this will start the conversion process.

Part 3. Conclusion

If you want to learn how to crop a video on Mac, you’ll have to use a tool no matter what. Cropping is a difficult task. Thankfully, there are numerous tools out there that support macOS, so this task is certainly possible.

With this guide, you can learn how to crop videos on Mac using four tools. It’s up to you which of these tools you’ll choose. But as long as you have any of these, you can easily achieve your goal.