Rotate Video Online — Turn or Flip a Video in Your Browser

How it works

Rotate MP4, MKV, MOV and more online

You recorded a video holding the phone vertically and it plays sideways on your computer. A drone shot came in upside down. A scanned lecture came in mirrored. You do not want to open a video editor, and you definitely do not want to push a private clip to a website that keeps a copy. This tool lets you rotate video online with nothing but the browser. Drop an .mp4, .mkv, .mov, .avi or a .webm, pick how you want it turned, and FFmpeg — the same engine desktop software uses, running as WebAssembly on your own machine — renders the corrected clip. It is the fastest way to fix vertical video or flip a mirror image without touching a timeline or sending the file anywhere.

Why rotate or flip a video

A phone recorded the clip sideways

Phones store orientation as a rotation tag, not as turned pixels. Many desktop players and older TVs ignore that tag and show the video sideways or upside down. Turning the actual pixels (the re-encode mode) makes the clip upright in every player, while the lossless mode simply refreshes the tag for players that do honor it.

You shot a selfie and it came out mirrored

Front cameras often preview mirrored, and some apps save that mirror to the file. A horizontal flip un-mirrors it so text reads correctly and the image matches what you saw. The vertical flip does the same along the other axis — useful for upside-down drone or action-cam footage.

A scan, screenshot or export is the wrong way round

Documents and screencasts are sometimes saved rotated ninety degrees or flipped. A quick 90-degree turn or a flip straightens them so they display correctly in slides, emails and players without re-shooting.

You want a deliberate artistic mirror

Sometimes the mirror is the point — a reflection effect for a title card or a social clip. The flip filters give you a clean, controllable mirror without a separate editor.

Lossless rotation tag vs re-encode

This tool offers two ways to fix orientation, and it is worth knowing which to pick. The lossless rotation tag mode copies the video and audio streams exactly (-c copy) and only writes a fresh rotation value into the file's metadata. Nothing is re-encoded, so the picture is bit-for-bit identical to the source and the job finishes in seconds. The trade-off is that some players and editors ignore rotation metadata and would still show the clip sideways. The re-encode mode actually turns the pixels with an FFmpeg transpose or flip filter (H.264, CRF 23, veryfast) so the clip is upright in literally every player — at the cost of one generation of recompression on the picture.

For a clip you are sharing widely, choose re-encode. For a quick local fix where you control the player, the lossless tag is faster and cleaner. The audio track is copied across untouched in both modes. Use the lossless tag for 90- and 180-degree rotations; horizontal and vertical flips have no metadata equivalent, so the tool automatically re-encodes when you pick a flip.

Browser rotate tool vs. desktop software

A browser tool and a desktop app solve the same problem under different constraints. The table below shows where each one wins.

What happens to the audio and the file

Rotation and flipping change only the picture. The tool copies the audio stream across with no re-encoding (-c:a copy), so spoken words, music and sync are preserved exactly. The output is always an H.264 MP4, which plays in browsers, phones, TVs and editors alike — the safest possible container for a rotated clip. The output filename keeps the original base name with a -rotated suffix so you can tell it apart from the source. Your original file is never modified; the tool only builds a new download in memory.

Privacy: your file never leaves your device

Every step happens inside your browser tab. When you open a file, the browser reads it into memory; the FFmpeg engine, loaded as WebAssembly, applies the rotation or flip on your CPU; and the result is handed back as a download link that points to data still on your machine. No request carrying your video ever reaches our servers, and there is nothing for us to store or delete. The only network traffic is the page itself plus a one-time download of the FFmpeg engine (about 30 MB) the first time you process a file; after that it is cached by your browser. You can even disconnect from the internet after the page loads and the tool still works.

Frequently asked questions

Supported formats in detail

The tool accepts the same broad set of containers as the player and converter: MP4, M4V, MKV, MOV, AVI, WebM, MPEG-TS/M2TS, FLV, OGV, 3GP and more. Internally it reads the file with FFmpeg and writes a new H.264 MP4. In the re-encode path the video is filtered with transpose or flip and compressed with libx264 at CRF 23 and the veryfast preset, while the audio is copied; in the lossless path the video and audio are both copied and only the rotation metadata is rewritten. A resolution cap (1080p or 720p) is applied only when it would downscale, never to enlarge, so small clips keep their native sharpness.

Troubleshooting: when rotation does not go as expected

The file will not load

Make sure you picked a video file. If the extension is unusual, rename it with a recognizable media extension and try again. The tool reads the actual bytes, so the name just has to help it recognise the type.

The rotated video still looks sideways in another player

You probably used the lossless rotation tag, and that particular player ignores orientation metadata. Re-run the tool with the lossless box unchecked so the pixels are actually turned; the re-encoded MP4 will display upright everywhere.

Text looks backwards after rotating

That is normal for a 90-degree rotation of a mirrored source, or it means you picked a horizontal flip by mistake. Switch the operation in the dropdown and process again — the original file is untouched, so you can retry freely.

I need a different output format, not MP4

This tool emits H.264 MP4 for maximum compatibility. For MOV, MKV, AVI or device-specific outputs, use the Total Video Converter for Mac, which also supports lossless stream-copy remuxing with zero quality loss and batch queues.

When to use a desktop converter instead

The online rotate tool is ideal for a one-off job: a phone clip that plays sideways, a flipped selfie, a scanned page the wrong way round. It intentionally keeps things simple — one file, a few clicks, a download.

If orientation fixes are part of your routine — straightening a folder of phone clips, producing web-ready videos every week, or chaining rotate-plus-flip-plus-crop in one pass — a desktop app is the better fit. Total Video Converter for Mac uses your Mac's hardware encoders, handles queues of files, and writes to any format you need, while Total Video Player Pro plays and manages large libraries and can rotate or detach audio on the fly during playback. That is exactly what this free tool is here to point you towards.