How to turn a horizontal video vertical.
4 min read · Updated October 30, 2026
A normal video is wide and a phone screen is tall. You can crop to the speaker, place the whole picture over a blurred copy of itself, or stack two shots. Which one is right depends on what is on screen.
Reframe to vertical automatically →Three ways to fill a vertical frame
- Crop to the speaker: a tall slice of the wide picture, following whoever is talking. Best for talking-head footage.
- Fit with a blurred background: the whole wide picture in the middle, a blurred copy above and below. Best when you cannot afford to lose the sides.
- Stacked: two shots, one above the other, such as a webcam over gameplay or two guests.
What to watch for
- Faces cut in half by a crop that does not follow the speaker.
- Captions and headings sitting where the platform puts its buttons.
- Text baked into the original picture that gets cropped out.
How Zlayo does it
Auto-Clip crops upright around whoever is talking and pans smoothly when the face moves out of a comfortable zone. You can also choose a frame: 9:16, 4:5, 1:1 or 16:9 inside the vertical output, with a blurred or black background. If it detects a webcam over gameplay it asks whether you want the stacked layout instead of changing your video without telling you.
Export size
Vertical short video is 1080 by 1920 pixels. Zlayo exports at that size on paid plans. Free creations come out at 480p with a small watermark.
Get started
On every paid plan, from $19 a month, after your 3 free creations.
Reframe to vertical automaticallyQuestions
Auto-Clip follows the face with a smooth pan. If a clip looks wrong, open it in the editor and adjust.
Yes. Choose a frame with a blurred background and the full picture sits in the middle.
Wide screen recordings usually work best with the blurred-background fit so nothing is cropped off.
9:16 for Shorts, TikTok and Reels. 4:5 and 1:1 also work in feeds.