iMovie Vertical Video with Black Bars? How to Fix?

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 in vertical? Here are two ways to edit vertical video without black bars.

Also Read: 5 Best Vertical Video Editor - Free & Fast>

Method 1: Edit Vertical Videos Horizontally in iMovie

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 in vertical to export directly. But there is a better solution to fix the problem - edit vertical video horizontally in iMovie.

Step 1 Start iMovie and tap the plus sign to start a new movie, then import the vertical videos you want to edit from your Mac or elsewhere.

Image board: iMovie Create New and Import

Step 2 Select the vertical video you just uploaded, and then click rotate 90 degrees to make it horizontal (otherwise, iMovie will automatically add black borders to the sides of your video). To do this, click the crop button and then rotate either left or right.

Image board: iMovie Rotate a Video

Step 3 Once completed the most important setup, you can start editing your vertical in iMovie, whether that's adding titles, backgrounds, transitions, or anything else!

Step 4 When you're done editing, click the export button in the upper right corner of the screen to save your edited video as a file.

Step 5 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. Just open the video in QuickTime, click Edit in the menu bar at the top of your screen, and then rotate either left or right to make your video vertical again.

Image board: Quick Time Player Rotate a Video

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

Method 2: Switch to a New Vertical Video Editor

Another way to edit a vertical video without black bars is to turn to another online vertical videos.

In fact, various online video editors allow you to edit a vertical video effortlessly. FlexClip is just one of them, and this powerful online vertical video editor enables you to work with vertical video both on a Mac or Windows PC with great ease.

FlexClip - Powerful Online Video Editor

User-Friendly Interface: FlexClip provides you with the super easy-to-use editing tools to edit your vertical video, no editing experience is required.

Online Editing: FlexClip lets you edit vertical videos online without downloading any application, making it simpler to edit vertical videos and save you time.

Advanced Features FlexClip allows you to edit vertical videos in various ways, like trim, split, merge, add text & music, apply transition & filters, etc.

Rich Stock Resources: FlexClip offers abundant vertical video clips, music track, and animations for you to furnish your vertical video.

Besides the various editing tools and options, FlexClip comes with stunning vertical video templates that inspire you to create your own masterpiece.

Vertical Video Templates:

Now let's turn to FlexClip and start editing your vertical video using a couple of features provided by FlexClip:

Step 1Visit FlexClip Homepage and begin with a template or start from scratch.Or you can click on eof the buttons below to get started directly.

Step 2 Then you'll come to the video template page, here you have two options to get started:

Image board: FlexClip 2 Options to Get Started

# 1: Start from a video template: pick a vertical video template from the Instagram Story category to customize directly.

# 2: Start from scratch: or you can start from scratch to upload your vertical footage. If you choose this way, remember to go to the Setting option and change the aspect ratio 16:9 (set by default) to a vertical one with the ratio of 9:16 first.

Image board: FlexClip Change Aspect Ratio

Step 3 Upload your vertical video clips to the storyboard with the "+" icon > Add Local Media. You can also pick some stunning vertical video footage from FlexClip's extensive media library by Add Stock Media option.

Image board: FlexClip Add Your Vertical Video Footage

Step 4 Once added the vertical video footage, you can start editing it with FlexClip's advanced features: add text, set the BGM, add transitions, apply the filter, change speed, etc.

Image board: FlexClip Edit Your Vertical Video

Step 5 When you're done the editing, you can preview the final effect with the Preview button on the top right corner of the screen. If you are satisfied, download it to your computer directly with the Export button.

Final Words

Now that you know how to edit a vertical video without black bars in iMovie 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.