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Rotate Video Online

Turn a sideways or upside-down clip by 90° or 180°, check the preview and download an MP4 with the turn written into the picture, so it plays the right way up in any player that opens an MP4.

Drop your video here

Drag video here or pick from your device

MP4, MOV, MKV, WEBM, AVI, M4V, 3GP, FLV, WMV · up to 500 MB

How to

How to rotate a video that plays sideways

Works with a clip straight off a phone, a camera or a screen recorder. The preview on the page shows you the turn before the server does the work.

  1. 1

    Upload the clip

    Drop one video on the box or click Browse video and pick it from your device. The file goes straight to our storage, so a clip of a few hundred megabytes is fine, and the preview under it plays the clip as your browser sees it.

  2. 2

    Pick the turn

    Choose 90° Left, 90° Right or 180°. The preview turns with each click, so match it to the picture: a horizon standing on end wants a 90° turn, and a clip filmed with the phone the wrong way round wants 180°. If the preview already looks right, read the guide below before you go on.

  3. 3

    Rotate and download

    Click Rotate video. The upload shows a percentage, then the server turns the picture, which took 10 to 15 seconds for our 8-second test clips and takes longer for a long one. When Rotated video ready appears, click Download. The file is an MP4 named after your clip with _rotated on the end.

The three steps: drop a video on the upload box, pick 90° Left so the preview shows the sideways sunset upright, then download sideways-sunset_rotated.mp4

Guide

How this page rotates a video: the rotation flag and the rebuilt picture

Most videos that play sideways aren't stored sideways. A phone held upright usually records landscape frames and writes a small rotation flag that tells the player to turn them for display. Browsers, phones and most current players obey the flag; some older players and editors don't, which is where the sideways clip comes from. The other case is a clip whose pixels really are turned, from a camera mounted on its side or an export that lost the flag.

A phone clip stored as landscape with a rotation flag that shows it on its side, and the upright landscape MP4 the tool made from it with 90° Right

This tool handles both the same way. Our server reads the clip with the flag applied, so it starts from what you see in the preview, turns the picture by the amount you chose and saves a new MP4 with the turn in the picture itself and no flag at all. That means the whole video is rebuilt, and the sections below cover what that changes. The timings and sizes come from our test run on 21 October 2026, described at the end of the guide.

Which way the picture turns

90° Left turns the picture counter-clockwise and 90° Right turns it clockwise, so a clip whose top edge sits on the left needs 90° Right. 180° is for a clip filmed with the phone upside down. The preview turns as you click, so trust it over the labels.

A phone clip that looks right in the preview but sideways on your computer

If the preview here shows the clip the right way up, the picture is fine and only the flag is being ignored by whatever you're playing it in. Don't rotate it: a 90° turn on top of a correct preview gives you a clip that's sideways everywhere. What you want is the upright view saved into the picture without a turn, and Compress Video does exactly that, because it rebuilds the video with the flag applied. We checked: a landscape iPhone-style clip flagged as portrait came back from the Light preset as an upright 1080 by 1920 MP4 with no flag.

Why we rebuild the video instead of changing the flag

Some desktop programs can rewrite the rotation flag in a second without touching the picture, and if every player obeyed the flag that would be the better fix. The trouble is that a flag-only rotation breaks in the same editors and old players that caused the problem in the first place. Turning the picture itself takes longer, but the result looks the same in anything that can play an MP4. The Re-encode pixels box under Advanced makes no difference either way; the server rebuilds the video whether it's ticked or not.

What the MP4 you get back looks like

Whatever you upload, the result is a standard MP4 with the picture at high quality and the sound at normal quality, the kind that plays on nearly everything. The smoothness is kept: our clips at 24, 30 and just under 30 frames per second came back at the same rates. A clip with no sound track comes back without one, no error. A MOV from a newer iPhone usually gets bigger, because a standard MP4 needs more space for the same picture than the format the iPhone records in; our 2.3 MB iPhone-style clip came back as a 4.7 MB MP4. Clips that were already standard MP4 came back close to their original size, 6.1 MB to 5.9 MB and 4.2 MB to 4.2 MB.

Quality after the turn

The picture is saved at a high quality setting, and at normal viewing size the rotated clip looks like the original. It's still a second round of compression, so don't rotate a clip twice to undo a mistake; upload the original again and pick the other direction. If the sharpness of a 4K clip matters to you, keep in mind that a turned 3840 by 2160 clip becomes 2160 by 3840 and is rebuilt at that size.

Big files, long clips and the time it takes

The whole clip is rebuilt, so the time grows with length and resolution: a short 1080p clip is done in seconds and a 500 MB 4K clip can take several minutes. The server gives up after 20 minutes, which only a very long high-resolution clip reaches. To stay well inside that, trim the part you need with Cut Video first, or shrink the clip with Compress Video.

Nine formats in, MP4 out

All nine formats the upload box accepts come back as MP4. If you need the rotated clip in another format, run the MP4 through a conversion page next, for example MP4 to MOV or MP4 to WebM. A file whose extension was renamed by hand uploads but fails once the server starts work on it, and a file over 500 MB is refused by the page before it uploads.

Last updated: 21 October 2026 · ChangeMyFile

Tested: 21 October 2026, three runs on the live tool with short cuts of Pixabay stock clips, plus one check of Compress Video. A 1080 x 1920 H.264 MP4 with the sunset on its side, 7 seconds, 6.1 MB, rotated 90° Left: done 10 seconds after the upload, back as a 5.9 MB 1920 x 1080 MP4 at 29.97 fps with a level horizon. A 1920 x 1080 HEVC MOV with a rotation flag saying portrait, 8 seconds with sound, 2.3 MB, rotated 90° Right: done in 12 seconds, back as a 4.7 MB H.264 MP4 at 1920 x 1080, 30 fps, no rotation flag, picture upright. A 1920 x 1080 upside-down MP4 at 24 fps with no sound, 8 seconds, 4.2 MB, rotated 180°: done in 15 seconds, back as a 4.2 MB MP4 at 24 fps, upright, still without a sound track. The flagged HEVC MOV through Compress Video on Light: back in 16 seconds as a 1080 x 1920 MP4 with the orientation in the pixels and no flag.

FAQ

Video rotation questions

At a glance

Formats you can upload
MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, M4V, 3GP, FLV, WMV
Turns
90° left, 90° right, 180°
Mirror or flip
Not offered
Upload limit
500 MB, one clip at a time
Result
Standard MP4, turn saved into the picture
Rotation flag
Applied first, then removed
Time
10 to 15 seconds for an 8-second 1080p clip
Where it runs
Our server
Download link
Expires after 30 minutes
Files deleted
Upload when the job ends, the rest nightly
Account
Not needed
Watermark
None

Can't find your answer? Visit our Help center.

Is it free to rotate a video here?
Yes, with no account and no watermark. The only limit is the 500 MB file size, and the page tells you before uploading if a clip is over it.
My iPhone video plays sideways on my PC. Which option fixes it?
First look at the preview on this page. If it's also sideways, pick the 90° turn that makes it upright in the preview and download the MP4. If the preview is already upright, the clip's rotation flag is fine and your PC player is ignoring it; rotating would make things worse. Run the clip through Compress Video instead, which saves the upright view into the picture without turning it.
Can I rotate the video without losing any quality?
Not here. The server always rebuilds the video so the turn is in the picture itself and survives any player. Changing only the rotation flag, which some desktop programs can do, is instant and keeps every bit of quality, but the clip still shows up sideways in the same programs that ignore the flag, which is usually why you're rotating in the first place.
Does rotating lower the quality?
A little, because the video is saved again at a high quality setting. At normal viewing size the difference isn't visible, and the resolution and smoothness are kept, with width and height swapped for a 90° turn. Avoid rotating the same file twice; go back to the original if you picked the wrong direction.
Why did my MOV come back as an MP4?
Every result is a standard MP4, because that plays on the widest range of devices. The picture and sound are the same as in your MOV, saved again. If you need a MOV again, send the rotated file through the MP4 to MOV page.
Can I flip or mirror the video?
No. The tool offers 90° Left, 90° Right and 180°, which are turns, not mirror images. A selfie clip that reads backwards needs a horizontal flip, which this page can't do yet.
Why did my rotated file get bigger?
The video is saved as a standard MP4, and if the original came from a newer iPhone, which records in a more space-saving format, the standard MP4 needs more space for the same picture. Our iPhone-style test clip doubled from 2.3 MB to 4.7 MB. A clip that was already a standard MP4 comes back at about the same size. If the size matters, send the rotated file through Compress Video.
How long does it take?
The upload depends on your connection, and the turn itself took 10 to 15 seconds for our 8-second 1080p clips. A long 4K clip can take a few minutes. Cancel stops the upload, or stops the page waiting for the result; a job the server has already started runs to the end, and the server stops any job that passes 20 minutes.
Can I rotate only part of the video?
No, the whole clip is turned. To rotate one section, cut it out first with Cut Video, rotate the piece here, and join it back with Merge Video, keeping in mind that a portrait piece in a landscape sequence gets black bars at the sides.
What happens to my video after I upload it?
Your browser sends the clip to our cloud storage through a link that works for 10 minutes. The server fetches it from there, deletes that copy straight away and deletes its own copy of your upload when the rotation finishes. The rotated MP4 stays so you can download it; the link stops working after 30 minutes and a cleanup that runs every night removes what's left.
Cut VideoCompress VideoExtract AudioMerge VideoRemove AudioVideo to GIF