How to Create a Square Video in iMovie

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How to Create a Square Video in iMovie

Last Updated: Sep. 03, 2021

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Summary

In this article, we'll show you how to create a square video in iMovie. And we also share you a free, far easier way to create square videos or crop your iMovie to square on Mac.

Although iMovie on Mac may allow you to convert your video to square with an aspect ratio 1:1, it always display it in 16:9 dimension screen as a square with black bars around it to make it fit the screen. And when you export the square video, it will still be square with black bars.

Frankly speaking, iMovie itself doesn't have the capability to export your movie into a square natively. But you can crop the iMovie to square with another software, like Keynote (a presentation software that comes preinstalled on Mac OS). Or you can even rely on an online video maker to make a square video directly. So, here goes.

Part 1 A Better Way to Make Square Videos Online for Free

Actually iMovie doesn't allow you to create a square video without black bars directly. You'll need another piece of software to remove black bars or crop your iMovie to square.

There's a much easier way to make square videos or crop your iMovie to square for social media, like Instagram and Facebook.

FlexClip video maker makes it a breeze for anyone to create square videos in a snap! With FlexClip, creating a square video is pretty easy - simply pick an aspect ratio you want to convert your iMovie to, in our case to a 1:1 square aspect ratio, upload your video, add text, overlays, elements, and more to create a beautiful square video!

Create a Video

View Templates

Step 1

Drag and drop all your photos and clips to the Media section and apply them to your Timeline. Here you can also upload your video from your phone directly. If necessary, use video and photo resources from FlexClip's stock media.

Image Board: Make a Square Video - Add Media

Step 2

Go to the ratio icon on the top left of the screen to pick an aspect ratio you want to convert your iMovie to with the More icon; here we choose the 1:1 square aspect ratio. You can also fit the whole video by zooming or dragging.

Image Board: Make a Square Video - Change Aspect Ratio

Step 3

Make more edits to to level up your square video! Animated text, video transitions, interesting overlays, emojis and more are waiting to be applied.

Image Board: Make a Square Video - More Edits

Step 4

Click on the Preview button to preview your product launch video. You can continue editing or save the video to your computer.

Part 2 How to Square Videos with iMovie - Crop iMovie to Square

As we said before, there’s no way to create square videos without black bars directly using iMovie. However, if you want a square video in 1:1 aspect ratio, you can use iMovie to edit your video like you do with other normal videos, and use another software like Keynote to change the dimensions and crop the iMovie to square.

Keynote is a quite popular presentation software that comes preinstalled on Mac OS. It is one of the best options to crop your iMove to square. Check the simple steps below.

Step 1

First, edit your movie like normal in iMovie to get your videos looking the way you want them to.

Step 2

Once you're done editing the video, export the video from iMovie.

Step 3

Open KEYNOTE, and drag your movie file onto a blank page in a keynote presentation.

Step 4

Go to the top right-hand corner and click on the "Document" section and adjust the size to the square dimensions you want with the drop-down menu - select "Slide Size" and then "Custom Slide Size".

Image Board: Crop iMovie to Square with Keynote

Step 5

Finally, export the square video file from Keynote. Click on "File" > "Export", and "Export to Quicktime".

Final Words

How easy it is! Now, you can share square videos on Instagram or Facebook or wherever you want to share them!

Sandy /

Has 4-year of professional photographing experience. Very much into recording every detail of life. She is passionate about all things related to video production, and loves to exploring tips and tricks about it.