tooloora

Rotate Video — fix a clip filmed sideways or upside down

Turn the picture by 90, 180 or 270 degrees, mirror it if you need to, and check the preview before you export — locally in your browser, no upload.

Runs locally — nothing is uploaded

Drop a video file here or click

MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV · one file · stays local

Runs locally in your browser – no upload.

Up to 120 minutes per video – longer material exceeds the browser's memory and your patience.

How do I rotate a video the right way up?

Drop the file, pick 90, 180 or 270 degrees, check it in the preview, export. The rotation happens in your browser on your device — the recording is never uploaded, and no watermark ends up in the picture. The result is an MP4 that appears the right way up on practically every device and in every program.

Why is my video lying on its side at all?

Because phones do not rotate the picture; they store it exactly as the sensor captured it and write the orientation into the file as a note. The MP4 container provides a 3 × 3 transformation matrix in the track header for this, defined in ISO/IEC 14496-12 ("ISO base media file format"). Players that read this matrix rotate on playback automatically; older programs and some editing tools ignore it — and then the clip tips over.

Does rotating cost quality?

If only the metadata note changes, nothing is recomputed and nothing is lost. If the rotation has to be baked into the frames, because the target ignores the note, the video goes through decoder and encoder once — with the same small quality loss as any other re-encode.

Why only right angles — and what about mirroring?

Because a wrongly held camera produces exactly those errors: 90 degrees left, 90 degrees right, or upside down. Free angles would crop the picture or leave black corners; that is a job for an editing program.

Mirroring is available too, horizontally and vertically — the usual reason is front-camera footage that was stored the wrong way round. It is not rotation, though: no container format provides a flag for mirroring, so it has to be baked into the frames. That means one round of re-encoding, while pure rotation stays lossless — and text in the picture becomes unreadable when mirrored. The preview shows both beforehand, in the order they are applied: rotate first, then mirror.

Honest limits

MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV go in, MP4 comes out. When a re-encode is needed it takes roughly as long as the video runs, and the tab has to stay open. The cap is 30 minutes per file. After exporting, check the result once in the program the clip is meant to run in — that is where you reliably see whether the rotation note is respected.

Frequently asked questions

Is my video uploaded to rotate it?

No. The rotation is applied in your browser and the result is written on your device. Nothing is transferred, and there is no watermark waiting behind a paywall.

Why does my video look rotated on one device and fine on another?

Because phones usually do not turn the picture at all: they store the sensor image as recorded and add a rotation flag in the metadata. Players that read the flag show it correctly, older programs and some editing tools ignore it — and then the clip lies on its side.

Does rotating cost quality?

When only the metadata flag changes, nothing is re-encoded and there is no loss at all. If the rotation has to be baked into the frames — because the target player ignores the flag — the video is encoded once more, like any other re-encode.

Can I mirror the video as well?

Yes, horizontally and vertically — the usual reason is front-camera footage that was stored the wrong way round. It works differently from rotating, though: no container format has a flag for mirroring, so it has to be baked into the frames. That costs one round of re-encoding, while pure rotation stays lossless. And text in the picture becomes unreadable when mirrored, which is why the tool says so before you export.

Which formats work?

MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV go in, MP4 comes out. Those are the containers that phones, action cameras and screen recorders produce, and MP4 plays on practically every device without extra software.