How-To: Fix iPhone videos that are mistakenly started in portrait mode [Video]

Have you ever started shooting a video in portrait orientation on your iPhone, only to quickly rotate into landscape mode after realizing the mistake? Once you’ve begun recording a video while in portrait orientation, it stays locked that way for the duration of the video, and vice versa.

Fortunately, inadvertent vertical videos can be quickly fixed by taking advantage of iMovie’s rotation feature on iOS. If you’d prefer to apply the fix on a Mac, you can just as easily utilize QuickTime’s rotation feature. Watch our hands-on video tutorial to see a couple of brief examples in action.

How to fix vertical videos on iOS using iMovie

Step 1: Open iMovie.

Step 2: Tap the Videos tab and select the clip that you wish to fix.

Step 3: Tap the Share button and tap Create Movie → Create New Movie.

Step 4: Perform a rotate gesture on the viewer to rotate the video to the correct orientation.

Step 5: Tap Done in the upper left-hand corner.

Step 6: Tap the Share button and tap Save Video to save the fixed video back to the photo library.

Although I much prefer the iMovie method due to the fact that everything is done natively on the iOS device, some of you may wish to send the video to your Mac in order to perform a fix with QuickTime.

Video walkthrough

How to fix vertical videos on the Mac using QuickTime

Step 1: Send the video that needs fixing to your Mac.

Step 2: Open the video in QuickTime.

Step 3: In the menu bar click Edit → Rotate Left (or Rotate Right).

Step 4: Save your video and send it back to your iOS device.

The bottom line is that there’s no need to fret over videos that are inadvertently stuck in portrait mode because you forgot to rotate your device to the correct orientation. The fix can be easily applied using iMovie, QuickTime, or a variety of other third-party utilities and apps.

If you don’t already own iMovie, you can download it from the App Store. It’s a free download for anyone who’s purchased or activated a new iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Otherwise, it can be purchased for $4.99.