How to Easily Change Video Aspect Ratio – Three Free Methods

Learn from this guide how to change the aspect ratio for your videos and ideal video aspect ratios for social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

Wednesday April 20, 2022 2:04 PM PDT by Karen Greene

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The aspect ratio of a video is the ratio of its width to its height. To display a video in fullscreen, an aspect ratio of the video should match that of the video player, so if you encounter black bar issues on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram, resizing your video to the platforms’ specifications is a good workaround.

In this guide, I’ll share with you a simple way to change the video aspect ratio without cost. By following the tutorials and screenshots below, you can easily solve your problem in minutes.

More Video Editing Tips: How to Slow Down a TikTok, How to Make YouTube Intro Video, 10 Best TikTok Editing Apps

1. Best Video Editor for You to Change Aspect Ratio on Windows

To get started, we need the highly recommended video ratio changer for Windows 10, FilmForth. FilmForth is awarded as one of the best free video editors without watermark, it’s completely free of charge, it’s lightweight but powerful, and what’s more, it’s amazingly intuitive and easy to use.

FilmForth video editor offers social media presets including YouTube, Instagram 1:1, Instagram 4:5, TikTok/IGTV, Ultra Wide, Classic TV, etc. for you to quickly resize your video in simple clicks.

Now, let’s simply hit the button below to get FilmForth from Microsoft Store, it’s compatible with both Windows 10 and Windows 11.

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2. How to Change Video Aspect Ratio with FilmForth for Free

Step 1. Create a New Project in FilmForth

To change your video to an ideal aspect ratio, first launch FilmForth from Windows start menu and hit New Project button in the middle.

Create a New Project

Create a New Project

Step 2. Import the Video into FilmForth

To import the video, drag and drop the video into the program or click ADD VIDEO/PHOTO CLIPS button to import the video you intend to edit the aspect ratio, suggested video formats for social media sharing are MP4 and MOV.

If your video is of an incompatible video format, we recommend you convert your video format first.

Import a Video File

Import a Video File

Step 3. Change the Video Aspect Ratio

To change the video aspect ratio, click on the small aspect ratio button below the video preview window, and a smaller screen will pop up where you can click to choose the aspect ratio for your video from 16:9, 1:1, 9:16, 4:5, 21:9, 4:3, 3:2, 2:1, 3:4, 2:3 and more. On this screen, you can change image duration and add transitions for your video as well.

You can consult the informative section at the bottom of this guide to learn about the best aspect ratios for different social media platforms.

Change Video Aspect Ratio

Change Video Aspect Ratio

Step 4. Edit Your Video for Better Sharing

Apart from changing aspect ratio for videos, FilmForth also offers a variety of practical video editing features for you to touch up your video for a better viewing experience. Click to select your video in the timeline and then click the button from the lower operation panel to trim a video, split a video, add special effects to a video, fade in/fade out a video, etc.

Edit a Video

Edit a Video

Step 5. Save and Export the Video

Whenever you’re satisfied with your work, click Save video button from the lower-right side of the video editing screen. A dialog will pop up for export settings, here you can customize your video bitrate, resolution, frame rate, and audio sample rate. Then choose a destination path for your export file to save and export the edited video clip.

Click Save to export

Click Save to export

3. How to Change Video Aspect Ratio with Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro is undoubtedly the best option for video editing professionals and is favored by content creators. From our earlier Adobe Premiere Pro review, we’ve awarded it as the superb and the best professional-level video editing software.

Apart from the advanced features, Premiere Pro is also a handy tool for video editing beginners to conduct simple video editing needs such as adding titles to videos and changing video aspect ratio. So in this section, I’d like to show you how to change the video aspect ratio with Premiere Pro in a simple way.

Step 1. First launch Adobe Premiere Pro, load in an existing project with the video you intend to resize in Premiere Pro, or create a new one.

Step 2. Head to the Sequence tab and create a new sequence. Select the File tab, then hit the New option, and click Sequence.

Step 3. From the main workplace, go to the Settings tab in the New Sequence dialog from the created Sequence.

Step 4. From the Settings tab, go under Video. Here there’re two options to change video aspects with Premiere Pro. One is to manually input the desired Frame Size, which refers to video height, and horizontal, which refers to width. Another way is to define a value in the aspect ratio bar. Just make sure to check the motion effects scaling option, for the video effects display correctly.

Step 5. When you’re done, head back to the main workplace to save the project and export Premiere Pro to MP4 or other video formats.

Change Video Aspect Ratio in Premiere Pro

Change Video Aspect Ratio in Premiere Pro

4. How to Change Video Aspect Ratio Online with Clideo

If you’re looking for a quick solution to your video aspect ratio, then you should also try online video editors. Online video editors are web-based applications that allows you to edit videos in a web browser such as Chrome. And Clideo is one of the best of them, here in the following, you’ll learn how to change video ratio with Clideo online resizer.

Step 1. To change the video ratio online, first, navigate to Clideo video resizer, drag and drop your video clip into the Clideo video editor to upload the file.

Step 2. From the aspect ratio menu to the right, you can resize your video for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Custom. There are Crop options that allow you to fit or fill the video frame as well.

Step 3. The video dimension info is shown in the lower-right corner, if needed, you can change the output file format from MP4 to MOV.

Step 4. When you’re done resizing, hit the Export button from the lower-right side to export the resized video from Clideo.

Clideo Resize Video

Clideo Resize Video

5. Social Media Aspect Ratio Information

I understand that even if you know the how-tos of changing the video aspect ratio, you still have no idea what’s the best ratio to resize your video to for different video sharing purposes.

No worries, in this section, you’ll learn how to convert the aspect ratio of videos according to social media specifications. If you intend to change the video aspect ratio to display video in fullscreen on popular social media or video-sharing platforms, consult the information below prior to changing the aspect ratio for your video.

  • YouTube

The standard aspect ratio for YouTube on a computer is 16:9. If your video has a different aspect ratio, the YouTube player will automatically change its size to match your video and the viewer’s device.

  • Instagram

Instagram landscape aspect ratio is 16:9.

Instagram square aspect ratio is 1:1.

Instagram vertical aspect ratio is 4:5.

– Learn how to resize a video for IGTV and How to Resize a Video for Instagram

  • Meta (Facebook)

Facebook landscape aspect ratio is 16:9.

Facebook portrait aspect ratio is 9:16, and 16:9 for those that include links.

Facebook renders aspect ratio 2:3 on mobile.

  • Twitter

Twitter landscape and portrait aspect ratios are 16:9 and 1:1 (square).

For Twitter, 1:1 aspect ratio is most ideal for rendering across devices with the best output.

  • TikTok

TikTok aspect ratio is 9:16 for a standard mobile phone screen (1:1 with letterboxing).

  • Snapchat

Snapchat single video ad aspect ratio is 9:16, long-form video ad aspect ratio is 9:16 or 16:9.

  • LinkedIn

LinkedIn aspect ratio is 1:2.4 to 2.4:1.

  • Pinterest

Pinterest shared video and promoted video aspect ratios are 1:1 (square) or 2:3, 4:5 or 9:16 (vertical).

Pinterest max width video required aspect ratio: 1:1 (square) or 16.9 (widescreen).

To Sum Up

That’ll be all for how do you change the aspect ratio of a video, and the information on the most commonly used aspect ratios for videos. As you can see from above, many video-sharing platforms share a handful of video aspect ratios, and you easily can find the ready-made presets in FilmForth. So don’t hesitate to get FilmForth and try it, and I hope you find the introduced solution helpful.

author

Karen is a professional writer with a background in column writing who enjoys resolving complex topics and explaining them in interesting ways.

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FilmForth - Free Video Editor

  • Easy to use and no skill required at all.
  • Export video to MP3 with one click.
  • Add transitions, effects, filter, text to the video as you want.
  • Remove, replace, record and edit the background audio easily.
  • Change the speed, volume, and subtitle on video with ease.
  • Stabilize, trim, rotate, and convert video in seconds.
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