Videos are a common part of everyone’s life, and if their dimensions are not corrected, you cannot fully enjoy the video. Moreover, many people need to remove unwanted parts of videos to maximize their engagement. Who isn’t familiar with the most popular tool like VLC? However, many users don’t know that VLC can also help in customizing videos instead of just playing them.
You can also crop a video in VLC as per your requirement without facing any issues. In this article, we will thoroughly guide you about cropping videos with VLC, along with some shortcut keys.
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How to Crop a Video in VLC on Windows
If you are a person of perfection, you must be looking for ways to make videos perfect. You can do this conveniently by cropping the videos to remove unwanted sides. Moreover, one of the best options to crop a video on a Windows computer is to do it on VLC. With this, you can watch videos in desired aspect ratio and save space on your device.
Crop a Video in VLC Temporarily on Windows
What if you don’t want to alter the crop ratio of a video permanently but want to watch it in the desired ratio? The convenient option for this is to crop it temporarily. However, if you don’t know how to crop a video in VLC temporarily, the steps listed below will help you:
Step 1: Open VLC and Import Video
To begin, open VLC on your Windows computer and click on the “Media” tab on the above panel. From the list of options, select ” Open File” and import the video of your choice.
Step 2: Crop the Video Temporarily
Once the video is opened with VLC, right-click on the video and access the “Video” options. From the appeared options, select “Crop” and choose the crop ratio of your choice.
Crop a Video in VLC Permanently on Windows
Now that you know about cropping a video temporarily on a Windows computer, you must be wondering how you can do this permanently. Luckily VLC is an easy-to-use tool, so cropping video permanently is also an easy thing. You can do this perfectly by following the instructions mentioned below:
Step 1: Open Video with VLC and Adjust the Preferences
To get started, launch VLC on your Windows computer and import the video of your choice. After this, click on the “Tools” tab from the above panel and select the “Preferences” option. From the new screen, enable the “All” option.
Step 2: Select Filter and Crop Video
Go to the “Video” section from the enlisted options and select “Filter.” Once the Filter options are expanded, locate “Croppadd” and click on it. On the right panel, select the “Crop” values as per your requirement. Now, again select “Filter,” and from the fright panel, enable the “Video Cropping Filter.” After this, click on the “Save” button.
Step 3: Save the Cropped Video
Following this, click on the “Media” menu from the above toolbar and select the option of “Convert/Save.” Now, click on “Add” and again import the same video. Afterward, click on the “Convert/Save” button, and from the next screen, access the “Settings” of your profile.
Once the new window pops up, click on the “Video Codec” section and enable the “Video” option. Now, access the “Filters” section and checkmark the “Video Cropping Filter” option. After this, select the location where you want to save the converted video and start the process by pressing the “Start” button.
How to Crop a Video in VLC on Mac
Don’t worry if you are a Mac user because VLC also allows you to crop video in desired crop ratio on Mac. Moreover, the highly intuitive interface makes it a more fun process. The process to crop a video in VLC is discussed here for your ease:
Step 1: Launch VLC and Add a Video
First of all, open VLC on your Mac and import the video of your choice. To do this, select the “File” tab from the above panel and click on “Open File.” Now, select the video and click “Open.”
Step 2: Crop the Video on Mac
Following this, click on the “Video” menu from the above options and select “Crop.” From the enlisted options, select the crop ratio of your choice.
📝Note: VLC on Mac doesn’t support the video cropping filter in its “Convert/Save” feature. Thus, you cannot permanently save cropped videos on Mac. But you can use the trick of its recording features to record the cropped video and then output it.
VLC Video Cropping Keyboard Shortcuts
Cropping a video on Mac or Windows devices with VLC is not a complicated thing. You can do this perfectly by following some simplified steps listed above. In addition to this, the shortcut keys for cropping videos are also very handy. You can learn about the keyboard shortcut keys to crop videos in VLC underneath:
| Shortcut Keys | Function |
|---|---|
| Alt + R | Assist in cropping only one pixel from the top of the video |
| Alt + Shift + R | Helpful in uncropping one pixel from the top of the video |
| Alt + D | Use to crop one pixel from the left side of the video |
| Alt + Shift + D | Use to uncrop one pixel from the video’s left side. |
| Alt + C | You can crop one pixel from the bottom of the video with this key. |
| Alt + Shift + C | Use to uncrop one pixel from the bottom of the video |
| Alt + F | You can crop one pixel of video on the right with this key. |
| Alt + Shift + F | It helps in uncropping one pixel from the right side of the video. |
| C | It cycles the ratio of crop |
Final Words
In general, it can be said that many people don’t know that they can crop a video with VLC. No matter if you want to crop video to remove unwanted parts or save the device’s space, VLC can help you. Moreover, you can do this on both Windows and Mac platforms. The steps to crop videos in VLC both permanently and temporarily on Windows and temporarily on Mac are also instructed in this article.
