How to Resize Video for Instagram (Feed, Stories, Reels)

Unlike YouTube which mainly focuses on 16:9 landscape videos, Instagram accepts sorts of videos including square videos, vertical and landscape videos. However, many users find these specifications confusing.

You can resize your video either by cropping or without cropping altogether. Avoiding cropping preserves all the original content. It's a safer choice if important action happens near the edges. Conversely, cropping allows the video to fill the entire screen, making it look native on Instagram and creating a stronger visual impact that often drives better engagement.

In this guide, we'll show you the best video dimensions for Instagram and how to resize video for Instagram Stories, Reels, and the Feed with best free video editing tools.

Instagram Post Size

Simply put, Stories and Reels always use 9:16 (1080 x 1920 px). Square feed posts use 1:1 (1080 x 1080 px). Portrait feed posts work best at a 4:5 ratio (1080 x 1350 px) for maximum screen space, or 3:4 (1080 x 1440 px) for a clean profile grid with no cropping, while landscape is 1.91:1 (1080 x 566 px).

Instagram supports mainly 4 types of videos – the feed video, the Story video, the IGTV video, and Reels, a newly-added video feature similar to TikTok. They share some aspect ratios in common, while some not. When your video does not fit its requirement, Instagram will crop or add borders to it automatically.

So, decide whether to crop based on your video content, then use a video resizer to change the video dimensions to the Instagram aspect ratio; that's all you need.

Resize Video for Instagram Without Cropping for Free

Resizing without cropping is ideal when you don't want to lose any part of the footage. You scale the video to fit it inside the target Instagram frame and add black bars or colored bars on the sides or top/bottom. Nothing is cut off. It's a safer choice if key visual elements are near the edges.

VideoProc Vlogger is a free video editing program for Windows and Mac. It's beginner-friendly, supports 4K footage, and has no watermarks or video duration limits, while providing solid tools for cropping, scaling, and changing aspect ratios.

Follow the steps below to resize your video for Instagram without cropping or watermarks for free.

1. Download and install VideoProc Vlogger for Windows PC or Mac, VideoProc Editor for Android or iOS.
2. Create a new project.
3. Import your video to Media Library, then drag it onto the Video Track.
4. Change the aspect ratio of the entire project using the Resolution icon in the toolbar.
5. Select the Instagram format: you can either choose a preset or customize any resolution you need.
6. Customize the background color.
7. Click Done to save the changes and export your video.

Resize Video for Instagram by Cropping

As an all-in-one video editor, VideoProc Converter AI is equipped with a simple video cropping tool that enables you to resize videos freely by easy drag-and-drop operations with instant preview. Besides squares videos, it has preset portrait and landscape modes for you to crop videos for Instagram Story and IGTV. Although Instagram does not support 4K UHD videos, VideoProc Converter AI can help you upload a high-quality video to Instagram by optimizing the resolution, the frame rate, and the bitrate settings.

VideoProc Converter AI - Best Video Resizer for IGTV and Instagram

• Smart video cropper with 7 pretests to resize videos for IGTV, Instagram Story, and feed accordingly.
• Free and easy to crop videos for Instagram post videos and stories without watermarks.
• Well-rounded editing toolkit to cut, trim, insert subtitles, add filters and effects to videos.
• Built with a robust video converter that can even convert GIFs to videos for Instagram.

Step 1. Double click VideoProc Converter AI on your computer desktop. Then hit "Video" > "+Video" to import a video or multiple video clips to it.

Step 2. Click "Target Format" > "General Profiles" and set the output format to MP4, the best video format for Instagram. And hit "Done" to get back to the main editing interface.

Step 3. Go to the editing panel and click "Crop" > "Enable Crop". Now you can resize the video for Instagram by choosing an aspect ratio (e.g. 1:1, 16:9) in "Preset", or dragging the box on the video to resize it freely.

Tips: If you prefer fitting the whole video on Instagram without cropping, go to "Format" which is next to the present "Edit Video" panel. Then tick "Expand Video" after you set the video resolution and aspect ratio in "Video Codec Options".

Step 4. When you finish cropping the video for Instagram, click "Done" to get back the main UI. Finally, select a folder to save the video and smash on the "RUN" button to export it.

Video Tutorial on How to Resize a Video for Instagram:

How to Resize Video for Instagram Online

For anyone wondering how to resize video for Instagram online, I'd recommend Kapwing, an online video editor integrating multiple utilities including a video resizer. Let's see how to use the Kapwing Instagram resizer with the following steps.

Step 1. Go to the official website of Kapwing and find "Resize Video" in its tool category.

Step 2. Import your video from a local folder or paste the URL into an online video. Wait for a while for it to upload the video online. Then choose an output size for your video. For example, select 9:16 if you are going to post the video on Instagram Story.

Tips: You might notice that Kapwing added white padding to the video to fit the output size. What if you don't want the background? Open Kapwing online cropping tool and convert it to a proper display size for Instagram by adjusting the box on the video.

Step 3. Click the red button on the right upper corner to export the video as an MP4. When it finishes the final processing, you can download the video and then post it on Instagram.

Note

1. The online video resizer takes much more time to import and export videos than offline video editors.

2. You need to upgrade your plan to resize videos for IGTV online when your video is longer than 7 minutes.

3. This free video resizer will add its logo to the final product.

How to Crop/Resize a Video for Instagram on Android

First, let me make it clear that the Google Photos app and the Gallery app don't offer any resizing or cropping features. So we need a third-party app to resize videos for Instagram on Android. Also, some default video editors on Android can help you, but they vary in different brands. Here we take KineMaster as an example.

Step 1. Open KineMater on your smartphone. Tap on the movie-making icon and select the aspect ratio for your editing project.

Step 2. Import a video from your local library and add it to the timeline. Click on the Pam & Zoom icon, and now you can press two fingers on the screen to move and crop the video at a fixed aspect ratio that you set at the beginning.

Step 3. When everything is done, export the video. And you can upload it to Instagram Story, Feed, and IGTV.

How to Crop/Resize a Video for Instagram on iPhone

Thankfully, the built-in video editing utility in the iPhone Photos app lets users resize videos at either a freeform or a certain aspect ratio. But note, this feature is only available on iOS 13 or later versions.

Step 1. Find the video in the Photos app and open the "Edit" option in the upper right corner.

Step 2. Tap on the crop icon and select an aspect ratio for your Instagram video, square, 16:9, or 4:5. Next, move the frame to decide which area to display and which to remove.

Step 3. Hit "Done" and you can save it as a new clip or cover the original one. Ultimately, you can add it to your Instagram story, post, or IGTV from your iPhone.

FAQs

1. How to resize video in Premiere Pro for Instagram?

After creating a new project in Premiere and adding the video to the timeline, you need to navigate to its Effects tab and search for the crop effect in it. Then apply the effect by dragging and dropping it onto your video clip. Now you can move your cursor to crop the video in Premiere Pro for Instagram.

2. How to resize TikTok videos for Instagram?

TikTok videos are vertical at the aspect ratio of 9:16 which fits stories, IGTV, and Instagram Reels properly. You need to resize TikTok videos only when you want to share them on Instagram feed. You can resize TikTok video to 4:5, 16:9, and 1.91:1 with VideoProc Converter AI, an online resizer, or a built-in video editor on your phone, which have been demonstrated above.

3. Do Instagram videos need to be square?

It used to have to be square. But since 2015, Instagram supports photos and videos in landscape (horizontal) and portrait (vertical) formats.