A Complete Guide on How to Square Videos (Instagram, iMovie, Premiere…)

Many social media sites adapt square video content, such as Instagram, Twitter on desktop, and TikTok. Square videos provide a 1:1 ratio so that they can expand to fill the screen without adjusting your mobile devices. They can take up 78% more screen space than landscape videos around the newsfeed on your phone, which brings about better user engagement. In other words, square video content can lead to more views and a higher video completion rate.

It is of vital importance to choose a suitable video display format for your video content. And the square video is undoubtedly a good practice. The following post will discuss how to make a video square. Read on to find your preferred solution.

WonderFox HD Video Converter Factory Pro is the best solution to square a video on Windows PCs. It offers a built-in square video editor to make all your videos in a 1:1 square frame. There are two methods to achieve that – crop the video with a 1:1 aspect ratio or change the resolution to the same width and height. Both are simple to operate.
Besides making videos square, this software can convert video formats and fit video specifications, including the video codec, bitrate, frame rate, length, and file size, for smooth upload to streaming websites. It can also help you record a square video from your computer and post it online. By the way, it features a fast video downloader, which lets you save videos, music, or playlists from websites simply with URLs.

To see how to use the square video maker in WonderFox HD Video Converter Factory Pro, free downloadfree download and install it on your PC. Follow the guide below.

The default video editor, iMovie, is the preference of many macOS and iOS users. However, it can only crop a specified portion but not change the video aspect ratio to 1:1. In such a case, you can use a third-party tool, such as Keynote.

Keynote is part of the iWork suite developed by Apple and can be used on Mac or mobile. It can create a presentation at a 1:1 aspect ratio and export it as a video file to share online. It has many other features, such as captions, editing audio, adding text, embedding a video from YouTube or Vimeo without downloading, etc. If you want to make a square video with Keynote, download it on your device and have a quick look at the how-to.

How to Make a Square Video on Mac using Keynote:

1. Run Keynote. Go to Document Settings > Custom Slide Size to create a presentation with a 1:1 customized size like 720*720.

2. Add your video file to the slide and drag & resize it to fit the slide.

3. Click File > Export to > Movie to save the presentation as a movie.

Hot Searches: Top 7 Best Video Editors for Low-end PCs | Top 6 Free MKV Editors for Windows and Mac

How to Square Video Online? You can find lots of online video croppers on your browser. Some are helpful, while some are not. Which square video editor should you use? Maybe Clideo, the platform that makes it super easy to edit all your video files, images, and GIFs. It can crop any part of your video within seconds. Sizes set by default in popular social media are prepared in handy. Moreover, it allows you to export the video file to 20+ formats.

Website: https://clideo.com/editor/crop-video

How to Crop Video to 1:1 Square Online:

1. Visit the site and click Choose file to add a file to the service.

Note: Max file size is 500 MB. Larger files will fail to import. Besides loading a video from your local folder, you can choose a file from your Google Drive, Google Photos, or Dropbox.

2. There are four aspect ratio presets on the right side of the cropping interface. Select the 1:1 option and drag the cursor in the player window to crop the video to square.

3. Navigate to the Format part in the bottom left corner of the interface to select the desired export format. (Recommendation: MP4)

4. Click the blue Export button, and a message will tell you it’s processing.

5. Play the video to have a preview. If it is ok, click Download to save it to your PC, Google Drive, or Dropbox.

Tips. Clideo will leave a watermark on your export video. You can remove the watermark by signing in and upgrading your account at $9 per month.

The above shares methods to square videos on Windows, Mac, and online. Next, I will give specific instructions on how to make videos square in different video editors (including Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and OBS). Keep reading and follow the tutorials if you are interested.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro is the industry-leading video editing software available for Windows and MacOS. It offers many features for processing videos, including scaling the frame size and resizing. It can scale to, set to, or change the aspect ratio to your required frame size, such as square 1:1, horizontal 16:9, and vertical 9:16. But operations in this professional video editor are confusing. Beginners will face a learning curve before utilizing the software.

> Steps of Premiere Pro Square Video

1. Import a video file into Premiere Pro and drag it to the timeline.

2. Right-click the entire sequence and select “Auto Reframe Sequence”.

3. Set the Target Aspect Ratio to Square 1:1.

4. Leave other settings as default and click “Create”.

Related Posts: How to Resize Video in Premiere Pro | Change Aspect Ratio in Premiere Pro 2020

DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve is professional editing software for macOS, Windows, Linux, and iPadOS. It supports color grading and correction, visual effects, and audio post-production. And there are three ways to crop a video in DaVinci Resolve. To square a video in this application, you can crop off the left, right, top, or bottom sides in a suitable value. Here shows you how.

> Steps of DaVinci Resolve Square Video

1. Run DaVinci Resolve on your device. Go to the top menu bar and select “File” > “Import” > “Media” to add the source video.

2. Drag the video from the “Media” tab to the timeline.

3. Select the source video in the timeline and click “Inspector” on the upper toolbar.

4. Go to “Video”, scroll down, and double-click the “Cropping” tab. Drag the sliders to make the video square by cropping from different sides.

5. Click “File” > “Export” / “Export Project” to export your video in DPT, DRB, or DRP format. You can convert the DRP file to MP4 for smooth playback or sharing.

OBS

OBS, short for Open Broadcaster Software, is an application for video recording and live streaming. It’s able to capture almost everything on your screen by adding the source, like Scene, Browser, Color Source, Media Source, Game Capture, etc. Before recording, you can edit the shot based on your needs. To make a square video with OBS, you need to crop the shot and record it to export the recorded square video file. Let’s see how to do that.

> Steps of OBS Square Video

1. Open OBS. Click the “+” button under the “Sources” tab. Select Media Source, create a new source, and press OK.

2. It will direct you to the Properties for ‘Media Source’. Hit the “Browse” button to locate the video you want to square and add it to the program. Then click “OK”.

3. Right-click the video and select “Transform” > “Edit Transform”.

4. Go to the “Crop” part, and adjust the px of the left, right, top, and bottom to make the video square. You can preview the resulting video in the player. Once done, click “Close”.
* A second option: hold down the “Alt” key, then click and drag the dots on the box.

5. Since OBS doesn’t offer a direct option to export video files, you need to record the cropped video and export a screen recording from this program. To do that, press the “Start Recording” / “Stop Recording” button on the right of the main interface.

Bonus. How to Square a Video for Instagram?

Take WonderFox HD Video Converter Factory Pro as an example.

Step 1. Install and launchInstall and launch the software on your PC. Click Converter > Add Files to import your video.

Step 2. Click the crop button. Select 1:1 as the Fixed Aspect Ratio and drag the cursor on the box to crop the video for Instagram. Then press OK to save the changes.

Step 3. Select an Insta-compatible format – H264 video + AAC audio in MP4 or MOV format.

Step 4. Choose a destination folder. Click Run to start the squaring process.

Step 5. Upload the square video to Instagram from the desktop.

We have walked through all the workarounds to create square videos on different platforms and video editing applications. For Windows users who want an all-in-one powerful video program (editor, converter, downloader, recorder, and GIF maker), HD Video Converter Factory Pro could be the best choice. Just give it a try.

Finally, if you encounter any problem with the process, please contact us, and we’ll be glad to help you. Thanks for reading!