The iPhone camera has long been the leader in smartphone videography. And thanks to its powerful Apple-designed A-series processor, the iPhone handles video editing well. In this detailed guide, let me show you how to edit videos on your iPhone. I have covered everything from cropping and merging the videos to removing sound and beyond.
Before you begin: Ensure you update your iPhone to iOS 14 as the Photos app in this version has several editing tools, which we will be using in this guide.
- How to trim a video on iPhone or iPad
- Crop a video on iPhone or iPad
- How to flip a video on iPhone or iPad
- How to rotate a video on iPhone
- Stretch a video on iPhone or iPad
- How to remove sound from a video
- How to add Apple filter to video
- Change video color, brightness, and other visual effects
- How to revert a video to its original state
- How to combine two or more videos on iPhone
- Add text to a video on iPhone
- How to add music to a video on iPhone
How to trim a video on iPhone or iPad
- Launch the Photos app and open a video.
- Tap Edit at the top right. You will see a trimming strip. If not, tap the camera icon next to Cancel.
- Drag either or both ends (< >) to trim the video. Tap the triangle play button to ensure you have made the suitable trims.
- Tap Done and choose to save as a new video or edit the original file.
I often go with Save Video as New Clip. And after playing the trimmed video, I delete the original file if it is up to perfection.
Crop a video on iPhone or iPad
While trimming, you remove the start or end segments of the video. For example, you turn a 50-second video into 40 seconds. With the crop tool, you can adjust the four edges of the full video. See the steps and screenshots below to learn more.
- Launch a video in the Photos app and tap Edit at the top right.
- Tap the square-like icon at the bottom row of the editing screen.
- Drag either one of the four edges to crop the video. You may also drag from the corners.
- If needed, use two fingers to zoom in and out.
- You can also use pre-built crop options like square, rectangle, 9:16, 16:9, 3:4, etc. For this, tap the rectangle-icon at the top right and choose the desired option.
- Finally, tap Done to save the video.
How to flip a video on iPhone or iPad
When you flip a video, the left becomes right, and the right becomes left. This is helpful to rectify the mirrored image. See the steps and screenshot for a better understanding.
- Open a video inside the Photos app and tap Edit.
- Tap the square-like icon at the bottom right.
- Tap the two triangle icon at the top left.
- At last, tap Done to save the video.
How to rotate a video on iPhone
- Open a video inside the Photos app and tap Edit.
- Tap the square-like icon from the bottom row.
- At the top left, tap the square icon with an arrow.
- Tap the same icon several times to get the desired rotation.
- Tap Done to save the video.
Do you not want to rotate the video in multiples of 90 degrees (as shown above) and wish to have a free hand? Tap the two semi-circles icon and drag the slider left or right to rotate the video the way you want.
Note: This tool may significantly crop out the corners of the video.
Edit any videos online on iPhone and iPad
As seen above, the Photos app does phenomenal at basic editing. However, it has some limitations. For instance, you can’t cut, edit and save the video in a specific format. Or can’t edit the video stored in Google Drive or Dropbox. This is a problem when your device doesn’t have enough storage.
Well, let me introduce you to online-video-cutter.com, a fun, easy-to-use, and hassle-free way to edit videos. You can do a lot – trim, crop, flip, rotate, adjust speed, loop, add text or image, and even stabilize the video.
Plus, the platform supports almost every video format, so you can import and export videos in any format of your choice. And remember, all of that is happening online; you don’t have to download an app or even a video.
Oh yes! You can add the video from iPhone’s Photos app, Google Drive, Dropbox, or a URL. So, if you want to edit small videos without a third-party app and save storage space, the online-video-cutter.com is a perfect and safe solution.
Rotate a video on iPhone using iMovie
- Inside iMovie, tap the plus icon and choose Movie.
- Select the video you wish to rotate and tap Create Movie.
- On the top preview section, put two fingers and rotate the video clockwise or counterclockwise.
Pro Tip: Working with vertical video? On the iMovie timeline, tap the video to select it (it will have a yellow border). Now from the top right, tap the tiny search icon with a plus sign inside. Next, pinch to see the uncropped vertical video.
Stretch a video on iPhone or iPad
- From the Photos app, open a video and tap Edit.
- Hit the square-like icon at the bottom row.
- Tap the left icon and drag the slider to the left or right to stretch the video horizontally.
- Tap the middle icon and drag the slider to the left or right to stretch the video vertically.
How to remove sound from a video
- Open a video in the iOS Photos app and tap Edit.
- Tap the yellow speaker icon at the top left. It will turn gray.
- Tap Done to save the video without audio.
If you later decide to get the audio, tap Edit → Revert → Revert to Original.
How to add Apple filter to video
Just like applying filters to images, you can do the same with videos. Here’s how:
- Open a video in the iPhone Photos app and tap Edit.
- Tap the three overlapping circles icon at the bottom.
- Choose one of the desired filters.
- Drag the slider to change the filter’s intensity.
- Finally, tap Done to save the edited video.
Change video color, brightness, and other visual effects
The pre-made filters are fun. But if you want manual granular control, you have that as well. Here is how.
- Open the iPhone Photos app, select a video, and tap Edit at the top right.
- Tap the icon with a circle and several dots around it.
- Here you have the following controls:
- Auto
- Exposure
- Highlights
- Shadows
- Contrast
- Brightness
- Black Point
- Saturation
- Vibrance
- Warmth
- Tint
- Sharpness
- Definition
- Noise Reduction and
- Vignette
- Tap Auto to let iPhone do the magic.
- Tap other options and drag the slider left or right to adjust it. Experiment with multiple options to achieve the desired level of editing.
- Finally, tap Done to save the video.
How to revert a video to its original state
- Open the iPhone Photos app, tap a video, and choose Edit at the top right.
- Hit Revert at the bottom right.
- Tap Revert to Original.
- Note: If you do not see Revert in step 2, that means you have not edited this video, or the edit is non-reversible.
How to combine two or more videos on iPhone
- Download and open iMovie.
- Next, tap the plus icon and choose Movie.
- Tap to select two or more videos.
- Or, tap < from top left and hit Video to see all clips.
- Tip: If you rotate your iPhone into landscape orientation, you will automatically see the media types like Video, Albums, etc. Next, tap a video and then tap the check box.
- After selecting the videos, tap Create Movie.
- The selected video will automatically be added to the timeline one after another. If you like the video order, jump to step 6. If you do not like the video order, touch and hold one of the videos and drag it all the way to the left or right to change the order.
- Transition effects: You will see a tiny icon made of two triangles between two videos. This symbolizes the transition effect.
- Tap it and choose None if you want no effect when one video ends and the other one begins. You may choose one of the other transition effects like Theme, Dissolvem Slide, Wipe, Fade.
- To turn off the transition sound, tap the speaker icon.
- Use 0.5s, 1.0s, 1.5s, or 2.0s to set the length of the transition effect.
- Preview the combined video: Tap the triangle play button to preview the final video.
- Save: Once satisfied, tap Done at the top left. Now, tap the Share icon and tap Save Video to get the merged video in the iPhone Photos app. You may also share the merged video directly using AirDrop or other apps shown here.
Add text to a video on iPhone
- Download and open iMovie.
- Tap the plus icon and choose Movie.
- Select a video and tap Create Movie.
- Hit the video from the timeline to select it.
- Tap T from the bottom row.
- Choose a text style like Slide, Split, Chromatic, etc.
- You will see TITLE TEXT HERE on the video. Tap it and choose Edit. Now, type the desired text.
- Customize text:
- Tap Aa to choose another font.
- Tap the icon next to it to set the text color.
- Hit the three-dots icon to style the text.
- Enable Full Clip Duration if you want the text to stay on the video in its entirety.
- You may also drag the text around.
- Tap Aa to choose another font.
- If needed: Tap the customized text from the video preview above and choose Reset to remove all styling.
- Tap the triangle play button to preview the video.
- Once satisfied, tap Done → Share icon → Save Video.
How to add music to a video on iPhone
If you want to add external audio to the video, we have a separate guide for that. You can use iMovie or other third-party apps to add songs and other music.
This is how you can edit videos on your iPhone or iPad using the Photos app or iMovie. I hope this guide was helpful. Additionally, the App Store is full of several excellent video editing apps that you may check out.
Have additional questions? Please ask via the comments section below.
Check out next:
- How to change slow motion video recording speed on iPhone
- How to use iMovie on Mac (Beginner’s guide with images)
- Best photo editing apps for iPhone and iPad
- How to send large video from iPhone: Quick methods
