How to Crop Multiple Videos to Vertical (9:16) at Once

To crop many videos to vertical at once, use a tool that applies one crop setting to a whole batch and fits it to each video's size. In BatchEdits you add "Crop to ratio" (9:16) to a style, upload all your videos, and every one is cropped in the same run, with captions and silence removal applied in the same pass if you want them.

Doing it one video at a time in a timeline editor works for two or three clips. For a week of Shorts, Reels and TikToks it's the slowest part of the job.

Why cropping many videos is harder than it looks

A 9:16 crop isn't one fixed box. A 1920×1080 recording and a 1280×720 screen capture need different crop sizes to end up vertical, and a 4:3 webcam clip needs yet another. Copy-pasting one crop box across clips of different sizes gives you stretched or off-centre results.

A good batch crop does three things:

1. Keeps the target shape (9:16, 1:1 or 4:5) on every video, whatever its original size.
2. Keeps the subject in frame: usually the centre, sometimes the left or right third if the speaker sits off-centre.
3. Runs before captions, so subtitles are placed on the vertical frame, not cropped off the edges.

How to crop multiple videos to 9:16 with BatchEdits

1. Create a style in the bulk video editor and turn on Crop to ratio.
2. Pick the shape: 9:16 for TikTok, Reels and Shorts, 1:1 or 4:5 for feed posts, 16:9 for YouTube.
3. Choose what to keep in frame: centre, left or right for wide videos; top, centre or bottom for tall ones.
4. Add the rest of the style if you want it: auto captions, silence removal, zoom on key moments.
5. Upload the whole batch and process. Each video is cropped to the same shape, fitted to its own size.
6. Fix any odd one out: if a single video needs different framing, adjust its crop box in the Crop & Clip step before processing.

Videos that already have the target shape are left as they are, so a mixed folder of vertical and horizontal clips comes out consistent.

Other ways to crop videos in bulk

If you're comfortable with the command line, this FFmpeg command crops a landscape video to a centred 9:16 frame:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "crop=ih*9/16:ih" -c:a copy output.mp4

Wrap it in a loop to process a folder. It works for landscape sources only and always crops the centre, which is fine for talking heads but cuts off off-centre subjects.

Tips for cropping talking-head videos to vertical

• Frame wider when you film: leave space on both sides of your head so a 9:16 crop never cuts your face.
• Check one video first: process one or two, check the framing on your phone, then run the rest.
• Crop before captions: captions placed on the final vertical frame stay readable and inside the safe area.
• Keep the original: keep your horizontal masters for YouTube and use the vertical versions for Shorts and Reels.