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I just recorded a video on my phone, but when I play it on my Mac it's in the wrong orientation.

How can I rotate the video by 90 degrees so that I can upload it to youtube?

Free solutions are preferred.

I just found out how to do it using YouTube's Video Editor which has rotate left/right buttons.

But this is not an answer how to rotate on Mac.

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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
10

You can use MPEG Stream Clip: http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

Simply open the file and choose to export it from the file menu in a format of your choosing, selecting the appropriate rotation in the selection box.

You can find out the current format of the video by choosing File > Show Stream Info as to match the export to the input settings if required.

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  • MPEG Streamclip is one of the best applications! +1 for an awesome recommendation!
    – daviesgeek
    Sep 19, 2011 at 1:33
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    It may be great but it's totally unnecessary for this task. QuickTime is fully capable of this.
    – Samuel Mikel Bowles
    Sep 19, 2011 at 1:41
  • Agreed if you need to do this goto the next suggestion. Do not introduce more software to complete this task. Sam's method using the built in quicktime program is far easier.
    – dc5553
    Apr 15, 2015 at 17:22
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    While MPEG Streamclip is an excellent program, it is very wonky when doing rotations: it's very difficult to get the settings right. By contrast, Quicktime does what you expect the first time, although almost always with a much larger file than you began with (then you can use MPEG Streamclip to get the file small again!).
    – SMBiggs
    Jun 16, 2016 at 3:43
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Use QuickTime to Rotate Videos

You don't need to use any 3rd party tools to do this. It's built right in to QuickTime Player.

Any file that can be opened in QuickTime can be rotated by choosing Edit > Rotate Left (or Right) or by typing Command-Shift-L / R.

If you alter a movie file in this way and attempt to close the file (Command-W) you will be prompted to save your changes. Save them to a new file and you will have a newly rotated video.

Share your Video on YouTube with QuickTime

QuickTime also has a built-in way to share your video on YouTube. With the video open (and correctly rotated now) select Share > YouTube...

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  • 13
    Well this didn't work. The video when rotated goes black.
    – Henrique de Sousa
    Jan 7, 2016 at 13:52
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    Same problem The video when rotated goes black
    – Metal Gear
    Jan 13, 2016 at 9:44
  • Same here, using QuickTime on El Capitan.
    – René
    Jun 9, 2016 at 7:29
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Using ffmpeg you have a few techniques:

For newer versions of ffmpeg use:

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf "transpose=1" out.avi

For older versions of ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -vfilters "rotate=90" -i input.mp4 output.mp4

Using mencoder:

mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -vf rotate=1 original.mp4 -o 90_CW_rotated.mp4 
mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -vf rotate=2 original.mp4 -o 90_CCW_rotated.mp4

Sources: ffmpeg, mencoder

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  • For further reference: use ffmpeg -vf
    – nbubis
    Oct 18, 2013 at 22:59
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    The above example is to rotate clockwise. To rotate counter-clockwise, use -vf "transpose=2".
    – SMBiggs
    Apr 2, 2019 at 17:29
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If you are willing to trust a web-based solution you can do the following:

  1. Go to video.online-convert.com.
  2. From left menu, choose what is your desired file format (select avi or mp4 if you don’t know much about this)
  3. Choose your file, it can be of any size and format
  4. Without changing or entering any settings, just choose to which angle you want to rotate your video
  5. Press “Convert button” and wait for the file to upload and convert.
  6. Converted file will be automatically downloaded

Source

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  • 1
    Answers should be more than just a link, can you please summarize the video in your answer?
    – nohillside ♦
    Aug 28, 2013 at 4:32
  • Sorry, it's not a video, it's a tutorial. This tutorial is simple as compared to Wikihow's method where they tell you to download software and other complex methods that are difficult for basic users. I've edited and simplified my answer.
    – user55955
    Aug 28, 2013 at 5:14
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    The idea is to make answers stand on their own. Links may break rendering link-only answers useless.
    – nohillside ♦
    Aug 28, 2013 at 5:49
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Use the ⌘ Cmd+Shift+L, R, etc. when you open the video in Quicktime. That should do the trick.

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Just open QT and it automatically rotates it. Then simply export it.

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