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How to crop a video on your iPhone using a free third-party app

iPhone 6S 4k video
It's easy to crop a video on the iPhone using a third-party app like Video Crop. Steve Kovach/Tech Insider
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Aside from trimming the start and end of a video, there's not much you can do without installing a video editing app on your iPhone

If you want to crop a video – to trim away some of the video to frame the scene better, to eliminate a distracting element from the edge of the frame, or just to change the aspect ratio for Instagram – you'll need to use a third-party app.  

There are several video editing apps for iOS, but one free and dependable app that allows you to trim a video is called Video Crop. Here's how to use it to crop a video on your iPhone

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone Xs (From $999.99 at Best Buy)

How to crop a video on an iPhone

1. Install Video Crop from the App Store and then start the app. 

2. The first time you run Video Crop, you'll need to give it permission to access your photos. Tap "OK."

3. Choose the video you want to crop. You can tap "All Photos" at the top of the screen and choose a different folder, such as "Videos" to find your videos more easily.

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You can edit any video on your iPhone from the Video Crop app.  Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. Tap "Crop" in the lower left corner of the screen.

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Use the Crop button to change the video's frame or aspect ratio.  Dave Johnson/Business Insider

5. You'll see a cropping grid appear in the video. Drag the edges of the grid to crop the video however you like, and move the grid around the screen to capture just the part of the video you want. Note that there are aspect ratios at the bottom of the screen – you can tap one of them to maintain a specific aspect ratio, like square for Instagram or 16:9 for television. 

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Choose an aspect ratio from the bottom of the screen and then adjust the crop box in the video preview.  Dave Johnson/Business Insider

6. Tap "Done" to save the video. 

7. Tap the Share button at the top right of the screen and then choose how you want to share it. You can save the video to your phone, email it, upload it to Facebook, and more.

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Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.