iMovie Vertical Videos: How to Make iMove Vertical Online & on iPhone

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iMovie Vertical Videos: How to Make iMove Vertical Online & on iPhone

Last Updated: Oct. 15, 2021

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iMovie, the home-built powerful video editing application for all the macOS, iOS, and iPadOS devices, gives you many great editing features to help you edit and make a better video. Then have you try to edit a vertical video in iMovie? What will happen then?

You may find that the exported video will become horizontal with black bars filling in the two sides. That's because iMovie does not support vertical videos with an aspect ratio of 9:16. When editing a vertical video using iMovie, it will fill the video with black bars to turn it into a 16:9 horizontal video.

So how to edit vertical videos in iMovie and keep them vertical? This post will show you how to edit vertical video online via iMovie alternative and in iMovie on iPhone for your Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, or any other platform that uses vertical video. So, here goes.

Part 1 A Better Way to Make iMove Vertical Online

As we said before, iMovie doesn't support vertical video with an aspect ratio of 9:16, so you can not edit a vertical video in iMovie and keep it vertical without black bars directly. You'll need another tool to remove black bars or crop your iMovie to vertical.

Here we'll share a much easier way to make vertical videos or crop your iMovie to vertical for social media, like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and more.

Various online video editors allow you to edit a vertical video effortlessly. FlexClip is just one of them. With FlexClip, creating a vertical video is pretty easy - simply pick an aspect ratio you want to convert your iMovie to, in our case to a 9:16 portrait aspect ratio, upload your video, add text, overlays, elements, and more to make a beautiful vertical video!

Get Stared Now

View Templates

Step 1

Upload your photos and clips to the Media section and apply them to your storyboard.

Image Board: Make a Vertical Video - Add Media

Step 2

Go to the side panel to pick an aspect ratio you want to convert your iMovie to with the More icon; here, we choose the 9:16 portrait aspect ratio. You can also make your video fit the whole screen by zooming or dragging.

Image Board: Make a Vertical Video - Change Aspect Ratio

Step 3

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

Image Board: Make a Vertical Video - More Edits

Part 2 How to Edit Vertical Video in iMovie on iPhone

In fact, iMovie does not give you an option to export vertical video directly. But, you can edit vertical videos with a simple workaround using the iMovie to edit it horizontally and then turning to the stock Photos app on your iPhone to rotate the horizontal video to portrait again.

Check the simple guide below to learn how to make iMovie vertical on iPhone:

Step 1

Start iMovie on your iPhone and tap the plus sign to start a new movie, then import the vertical videos you want to edit.

Step 2

Select the vertical video you just uploaded, tap on the Pinch to zoom icon in the upper right corner, and make the pinch gesture on the screen of your iPhone. Tap one more time on the Pinch to zoom to deselect it.

Step 3

Edit your vertical in iMovie as usual, whether that's adding titles, backgrounds, transitions, or anything else!

Image Board: Edit Vertical Video in iMovie Horizontally (Image Source:homeexplained.com)

Step 4

Once you are done editing, rotate the vertical video with the gesture on your iPhone's screen. (If you export the vertical video without rotating it, iMovie will automatically add black borders to the sides of your video).

Step 5

Now, you can tap Done, then click on the Share button and Save Video.

Note:

Here, you'll notice that the exported video is horizontal instead of vertical, so you need to do the final touch to make it a vertical one.

Step 6

Press the home button to go to the main screen, launch the Photos app, select the exported video, and tap edit in the upper right corner.

Image Board: Rotate iMovie to Vertical with Photos App (Image Source:homeexplained.com)

Step 7

Go to the cropping section and click the rotate button to make your video vertical again.

Now you've got the iMovie vertical video on your iPhone without turning horizontal and black bars.

Final Words

Now that you know how to edit a vertical video without black bars in iMovie on your iPhone or using another powerful online vertical video editor, FlexClip, it's time to put these tips into practice now!

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.