FFmpeg Cookbook

Rotate Video Tool

Rotate 90° / 180° / 270° or flip horizontally / vertically. Fixes phone clips that play sideways.

Local processing only — your file never leaves the browser
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Drag & drop a video, or tap to select
MP4 / MOV / WebM, up to 500 MB
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90° CW
Clockwise
180°
Upside down
90° CCW
Counter-CW
H-flip
Mirror
V-flip
Vertical mirror
Re-encodes to preserve quality and overrides the source rotation metadata so the result plays the same way in every player.
Processing… 0%

Useful next tools

Popular uses
Fix phone video orientationRotate 90 degreesAvoid orientation metadata problems

What this tool does

  • 90° clockwise / 180° / 90° counter-clockwise
  • Horizontal mirror and vertical flip
  • Overrides source rotation metadata so it plays the same way everywhere
  • Video is re-encoded; audio is stream-copied (lossless)
  • Local-only processing — your file never leaves the browser

How to use

  1. 1

    Drop the video

    MP4 / MOV / WebM, up to 500 MB.

  2. 2

    Pick a direction

    5 options. The most common fix for "iPhone clip plays sideways" is 90° CW.

  3. 3

    Run

    Preview will appear when complete; download the result.

What each setting means

90° CW
Rotates 90° clockwise. The typical fix for phone clips that record landscape but play portrait.
180°
Upside down — for clips accidentally recorded inverted.
90° CCW
Rotates 90° counter-clockwise.
Horizontal flip
Mirrors left/right. Avoid on clips with on-screen text — text becomes unreadable.
Vertical flip
Mirrors top/bottom.

Recommended settings

iPhone portrait shot plays landscape
90° CW
Some players ignore the rotation metadata; physical rotation guarantees correct orientation everywhere.
Recorded upside down by accident
180°
Fixes front/back camera mix-ups in one pass.
Re-uploading to TikTok with mirror flip
Horizontal flip
Common re-upload trick to avoid duplicate-detection. Avoid if the video contains on-screen text.

Common pitfalls

Symptom: Output still plays the same direction

Cause: Some old players honor metadata over pixel orientation.

Fix: This tool overwrites the rotate metadata too (-metadata:s:v rotate=0), so a fresh download will play correctly.

Symptom: Slight quality drop after 90° rotation

Cause: Resampling for the swapped dimensions.

Fix: CRF 20 keeps the loss imperceptible. To avoid entirely, re-shoot in the correct orientation.

Symptom: Mirror flip made on-screen text unreadable

Cause: Mirroring flips text along with the rest of the frame.

Fix: Skip mirror flip for text-heavy footage; use a different effect like a background-only mirror layer.

Equivalent FFmpeg commands

Reference commands you can run on the desktop FFmpeg CLI.

90° CW with metadata override
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf transpose=1 -metadata:s:v rotate=0 -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy output.mp4
180° rotation
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "transpose=2,transpose=2" -metadata:s:v rotate=0 -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy output.mp4
Horizontal flip (mirror)
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf hflip -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy output.mp4

Browser support & limits

  • Recommended max: 500 MB
  • No hardware encoding (browser sandbox restriction)

Privacy

This tool runs ffmpeg.wasm directly in your browser. Files never leave your device — everything runs locally. Read the privacy policy →

Frequently asked questions

Should I rotate my phone clip or re-shoot?

For an existing clip, rotate. For new shoots, check your camera app settings — phones write rotation metadata via the accelerometer, so this is normally automatic.

Two 90° rotations = 180°?

Yes, mathematically. Use the 180° preset directly so the encode runs once instead of twice.

Should I rotate before uploading to YouTube?

YouTube respects rotation metadata, but TikTok and some other social platforms don't. Pre-rotating physically is the safe path.

Does audio change?

No — audio is stream-copied (-c:a copy), unchanged in length or quality.

Does file size change after rotation?

Pixel count is identical; encoded size differs only marginally because of how H.264 handles the new aspect.

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