How to Fix Black Bars on Vertical Videos

Vertical video and the 9:16 frame

Aspect ratio describes the shape of a frame as width to height. A phone held upright records 9:16, which is 9 units wide and 16 units tall. It is the typical shape for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, because it fills an upright phone screen.

A regular horizontal video is 16:9, the same shape rotated. Put either shape inside the other, and the clip covers only about a third of the frame. The rest is empty space, usually filled with black.

Where the bars come from

A 9:16 clip exported inside a 16:9 canvas

The canvas is the full output frame of an editing project. Many editors default to a horizontal canvas. If you add an upright phone clip and export without changing that setting, you get a 16:9 file with a narrow picture in the middle and wide black sides. On a phone, this file plays as a small strip with bars all around.

A horizontal clip placed in a vertical project

This is the mirror case. The project is 9:16, the footage is 16:9, and the editor fits the full width of the clip into the frame. Large black bands appear above and below.

Black sides already embedded in the file

Once a video has been exported with bars, they become ordinary pixels in the video frames and travel with the file. Files received from clients, downloaded from messengers, or re-saved from other platforms often arrive this way.

Black space added by a platform preview

Apps and websites show videos in their own display areas. An upright clip opened on a desktop site, in a chat preview, or in a horizontal embedded player gets padding from that player. The file has no bars. YouTube's help pages, for example, note that the player may add padding around 9:16 videos in computer browsers.

Screen recordings with unused border area

Recording a phone app on a computer, or capturing a window that does not fill the recorded display, leaves unused area around the content. If that area is solid black and even, it behaves like any other embedded border.

A vertical video placed over a background on purpose

Some layouts are intentional: a vertical clip centered on a branded or blurred background, with a title or captions beside it. That space is part of the design. Treat it as content.

Which fix fits which situation

Six scenarios and how to handle them

1. The vertical video has black bars on the left and right inside the file

This is the simplest case. The real picture is already vertical. It is just wrapped in a horizontal frame. Removing the border area returns the clip to its true shape.

You can clean up black borders online with Deus.Video. The tool analyzes the video frame, detects the uniform black borders, and crops them. No manual cropping is required, and the visible image is not stretched, so people and text keep their proportions.

The resolution changes after the crop. A 1920 × 1080 file with a vertical picture in the center becomes roughly 608 × 1080. That number is worth noticing: the vertical picture inside a horizontal export was never high resolution. If you still have the original phone clip, re-exporting it on a 9:16 canvas will give you more pixels than rescuing the bordered file.

2. A horizontal video needs to fill a vertical 9:16 canvas

Here there are no borders to remove from the source. The clip is horizontal, and the target is vertical. Filling the frame means keeping only a vertical slice of the picture, a little under a third of its width.

First set the output shape with Resize Video. Then choose which part of the picture to keep with Crop Video. This works well when the subject stays in one area of the frame, such as a single speaker, a product on a table, or a centered game character. It works poorly for wide group shots and fast side-to-side action.

3. The platform adds bars only during playback

Open the source file on your device in a regular video player. If it fills the frame with no black area, the file is fine. What you saw in the app was the app's own layout around the video.

Editing will not change this. In some cases it makes things worse: adding or keeping bars in the file prevents the player from adapting to the clip's shape. Upload the clean file and let each platform display it in its own way.

4. Important content would be lost by cropping

Look at what reaches the edges. Two people at opposite sides of an interview, a wide slide with text, a scoreboard in a corner: a tight vertical crop would cut these off. Cropping is the wrong tool when the full width carries meaning.

Keep the whole picture and deal with the empty space another way. That leads to the next scenario.

5. A blurred or branded background is preferable to a crop

Background fill keeps the full horizontal picture inside a vertical frame and replaces the black area with something intentional. A blurred, enlarged copy of the same video is the most common choice. A solid brand color, a gradient, or a still image works too.

The space above and below the picture can also do some work. A headline on top and captions below turn unused space into a layout. The visible picture stays small, which is the trade-off, but nothing is lost and nothing is distorted.

6. The video is intended for TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts

All three are built around upright full-screen viewing, and 9:16 is the typical format for them. Exact pixel sizes, length limits, and safe areas change over time, so check each platform's current help pages before a final export.

Two habits hold up regardless of the current numbers. Export a true vertical file with no bars saved into it. And keep faces, captions, and key details away from the very top and bottom, where app buttons and descriptions usually overlap the video.

A workflow for embedded borders on vertical clips

1. Confirm the bars are in the file by opening it in a standard player and resizing the window. Embedded borders keep their proportion to the picture.
2. Check that the borders are solid black and the same thickness from start to finish.
3. Upload the file and run automatic border removal.
4. Preview the result. Look at the left and right edges, at any captions near the bottom, and at the darkest scene in the clip.
5. Download the vertical file, or continue editing if you need to resize it for a specific platform.
6. If the detection cut into a dark scene or left a thin line, switch to a manual crop.

Have black borders embedded in your vertical video file? Use Deus.Video to automatically remove black bars from a video. The borders are detected and cropped without stretching the visible image.

When automatic removal is not the right tool

Automatic detection looks for uniform black borders that are part of the frame. A few vertical-video cases fall outside that:

• Blurred or colored sides. These are not black borders. Crop them manually if you want them gone.
• Dark footage. Concerts, night streets, and dim rooms can blend into the border. Review the preview carefully.
• Mixed clips. A compilation where some clips have sides and others do not has no single correct crop. Fix the clips one by one, or go back to the project and re-export.
• Off-center pictures. If the picture was placed to one side of the canvas, borders of different thickness may need a manual crop.

There is also the question of what not to do. Do not stretch a horizontal clip to fill a vertical frame. The distortion is severe at that ratio. Our guide to removing black bars without stretching the video explains why cropping is the safe route.

Conclusion

Start by finding out where the bars live. If they are solid black borders saved inside a file whose real picture is vertical, crop them automatically and you get a clean upright clip at a smaller resolution. If the footage is horizontal and the destination is vertical, decide between reframing and a background fill, based on how much of the width matters. If the bars exist only inside an app's player, keep your file as it is.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my vertical video look tiny on a phone?

It was probably exported inside a horizontal frame. The phone then fits that horizontal frame to its upright screen, which adds a second set of bars above and below. The picture ends up boxed on all four sides. Removing the embedded side borders fixes it.

Can I turn a horizontal video into a vertical one without losing anything?

Not by filling the frame. A full-height vertical crop keeps less than a third of the width. To keep everything, place the horizontal picture inside the vertical frame and use a blurred or designed background for the remaining space.

Will the cropped vertical file be sharp enough for social platforms?

It depends on the source. A vertical picture rescued from a 1080-pixel-tall horizontal export is only about 608 pixels wide. It will play, but it has fewer pixels than a native phone recording. When you have the original clip, a fresh 9:16 export is the better starting point.

My video has blurred sides, not black ones. Can they be removed automatically?

Automatic detection targets uniform black borders. Blurred sides contain moving image content, so they are not recognized as borders. Use a manual crop and drag the crop frame to the edges of the sharp picture.

How do I avoid this problem in future projects?

Set the project canvas to the shape of your final video before you start editing, and check the export dimensions before you render. If you publish the same video in both orientations, make two exports with two canvases.

Sources

• YouTube Help, "Video resolution & aspect ratios" – player padding for 9:16 videos in computer browsers; advice not to add bars to the file: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6375112 (checked September 17, 2026)
• Wikipedia, "Pillarbox" – side bars when a narrower picture is shown in a wider frame: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarbox
• Wikipedia, "Windowbox (filmmaking)" – bars on all four sides caused by double formatting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowbox_(filmmaking)
• No platform pixel dimensions are stated in this article. 9:16 is referred to only as the typical vertical format.