16:9 to 9:16 converter
Converting 16:9 to 9:16 means turning a 1920 × 1080 frame into a 1080 × 1920 one — the same two numbers, swapped. Upload a horizontal clip below and it comes out vertical, 1080p, ready for TikTok, Reels or Shorts.
The catch is what happens inside that new frame. A 16:9 picture doesn't fit a 9:16 hole — something has to give. This page is about which something, and letting you choose it rather than have an app decide for you.
First video free, no signup · MP4, MOV, MKV, WEBM, AVI
Updated 24 July 2026 · by Yohann Kipfer, who writes the encoder behind make-vertical.com
The ratios, in one line each
16:9 is wide: divide 16 by 9 and you get 1.778 — the frame is 1.78× wider than it is tall. 9:16 is its mirror: 0.5625, taller than wide by the same factor. They are reciprocals, which is why the pixel dimensions simply trade places: 1920 × 1080 ↔ 1080 × 1920.
If you ever need to size a canvas by hand:
9:16 height = width × 16 / 9
9:16 width = height × 9 / 16
Dimension conversion table
For each common 16:9 source, two outcomes. Crop keeps the biggest 9:16 slice that fits (full screen, but you lose the sides). Fit-in-frame drops the whole 16:9 into a 1080 × 1920 canvas at 1080 × 608 and fills the rest. The numbers are pure arithmetic: a 9:16 crop is always height × 9/16 wide.
| 16:9 source | Crop (fills screen) | Fit-in-frame | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1280 × 720 (720p) | 406 × 720 | 1080 × 608 canvas | Crop is only 406 px wide — too soft for a 1080 upload. Fit-in-frame or start bigger. |
| 1920 × 1080 (1080p)most common | 608 × 1080 | 1080 × 608 canvas | The common case. Crop needs a ×1.78 upscale to hit 1080 wide. |
| 2560 × 1440 (1440p) | 810 × 1440 | 1080 × 608 canvas | Crop is 810 px — still under 1080, still upscales (×1.33). |
| 3840 × 2160 (4K) | 1216 × 2160 | 1080 × 608 canvas | The only common source whose crop clears 1080. Downscales ×0.89 — no quality loss. |
Notice the fit-in-frame column never changes: every 16:9 source lands at 1080 × 608 inside the canvas, because 16:9 scaled to 1080 wide is 608 tall regardless of where it started. The crop column, on the other hand, only reaches a usable width once you feed it 4K.
Size a canvas yourself
Type a width or a height and get the 9:16 partner (plus 4:5, 1:1 and 2:3, the other ratios the tool exports).
Formulas: height = width × 16/9 · width = height × 9/16
What the crop throws away
Here is the sum behind the table. The largest 9:16 crop inside a 1920 × 1080 frame keeps the full height and is 1080 × 9/16 = 607.5 px wide. That's 656,100 pixels out of 2,073,600 — 31.6% kept, the other 68.4% gone. The percentage depends only on the ratio, so it is the same at 720p and at 4K.
Two ways to soften that. A blurred or padded background skips the crop entirely — nothing is cut. Or subject tracking still crops, but moves the 608-px window so it stays on the person instead of nailing it to the centre. You keep the same 31.6%; the difference is that the 31.6% has your subject in it the whole clip.
Run the numbers on your video
Put in your real dimensions — it's all arithmetic on those two numbers.
- Native 9:16 crop
- 608 × 1080
- Pixels kept
- 31.6%
- To reach 1080 wide
- ×1.78 (upscale)
You throw away 68.4% of the image, and the crop is only 608 px wide — under the 1080 the standard asks for. Publishing at 1080 × 1920 means upscaling ×1.78, and that is exactly where the soft, mushy look comes from. Your source would need 1920 px of height to avoid it.
With a blurred background nothing gets cropped: the whole frame goes in at 1080 × 608 and fills 31.6% of the canvas height. A blurred copy of your own shot fills the rest.
The three ways to fill a 9:16 frame
Every 16:9-to-9:16 conversion is really a choice between these three. There is no fourth, and no magic option that keeps the whole frame and fills the screen — the geometry forbids it.
The screen is full, nothing letterboxed.
You lose 68.4% of the width. A static crop drifts off a moving subject.
Single centred subject, or when you turn on subject tracking so the 9:16 window follows the face.
The entire 16:9 frame survives — nothing cropped, nothing upscaled.
Your video fills 31.6% of the screen height. The rest is a blurred copy of itself.
Talking heads, gameplay, screen recordings — anything where cutting the sides would cost information.
Whole frame kept, and the flat fill compresses to almost nothing.
Two dead bands top and bottom. Reads as 'reposted from YouTube', not native.
You want the smallest file and don't care that it looks recycled, or you'll add captions in the bands.
A file-size note nobody mentions: black bars and solid colours are flat, so H.264 compresses them to almost nothing — those exports are the smallest. A blurred background is moving detail, so the encoder spends real bits on it and the file is larger for the same clip. At the CRF 21 this tool uses the gap is modest, but it exists.
Convert your 16:9 now
Online, nothing to install. Drop a horizontal clip, pick crop or a fill, trim if you want, export at 1080 × 1920. The first video is free.
MP4, MOV, MKV, WEBM, AVI in · MP4 1080p out · one clip at a time
Why the crop is 608, not 607.5
607.5 isn't a whole number of pixels, and there's no half pixel. Worse, H.264 with 4:2:0 chroma (yuv420p — the thing every phone plays) works in 2 × 2 blocks, so it demands even width and height. 607.5 rounds up to 608, not 607. If you've ever seen ffmpeg print width not divisible by 2 and quit, that's the rule biting. Every output size in this tool ends in Math.round(x / 2) * 2 for exactly that reason.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert 16:9 to 9:16 without black bars?
Two ways, both here and neither leaves bars. Crop to fill (you lose the sides but the screen is full), or use a blurred background — the whole 16:9 goes in at 1080 × 608 and a blurred copy of the same shot fills the space above and below instead of black. Pick blurred background if cutting the sides would remove something that matters.
What are the exact dimensions? 1920×1080 to what?
1920 × 1080 becomes 1080 × 1920 — the same two numbers, swapped. That's the canvas. What lands inside it depends on the mode: a crop-to-fill keeps a 608 × 1080 slice and stretches it to 1080 × 1920; a blurred background drops the full frame in at 1080 × 608 and fills the rest.
Does it output 1080p?
Yes — 1080 × 1920, the resolution TikTok, Reels and Shorts all ask for. 720 × 1280 is offered too. One honest caveat: if your source is 1080p and you crop, the real crop is 608 px wide, so reaching 1080 means a ×1.78 upscale. The canvas is 1080p but that region can't be sharper than its 608 source pixels. Start from 4K, or don't crop, to keep it genuinely sharp.
Can I convert several videos at once (batch)?
No. This converts one clip at a time on purpose — you set the crop, the fill and the trim per video and see the result before exporting. Batch conversion with a single blind setting is what produces off-centre subjects and letterboxed messes across a whole folder.
Does it work on mobile?
Yes. It runs in the browser, the upload and export happen on the server, so a phone does the same job as a laptop. Uploading a large clip over mobile data is the only slow part — the conversion itself doesn't run on your device.
Which formats can I convert?
MP4, MOV, MKV, WEBM and AVI in; MP4 (H.264, yuv420p) out — the codec every phone and every platform plays without re-encoding on their end.
Keep going
Swap the numbers. Keep the quality.
1920 × 1080 in, 1080 × 1920 out, and you decide on screen what happens to the sides.
Convert my video to 9:16First one free · see pricing