How to rotate a video on a Mac
A clip that came out sideways or upside-down — the classic phone-in-the-wrong-orientation problem — is a two-second fix, and it shouldn't need a timeline editor, an account, or an upload to some website. Here's how to rotate a video on a Mac in seconds, 100% offline: turn it 90° left or right, flip it 180°, or mirror it — with the audio kept and either by typing it in plain English or by using the Rotate lane.
The fastest way: just ask
Crisp has a plain-English box ("Or just tell Crisp what to do…"). Drop your video in and describe the problem — it understands the way people actually say it:
- rotate it right — 90° clockwise
- rotate left — 90° counter-clockwise
- my video is sideways — Crisp turns it upright
- my video is upside down — a 180° flip
- mirror it (or flip it horizontally) — un-reverse a selfie clip
Crisp reads the request, shows you the plan, switches to the Rotate lane and sets the direction for you — you just press the button. And if you ask for a bigger edit in the same breath, "rotate it right and upscale to 4K", Crisp splits the request and plans both as two steps, so nothing gets dropped.
The manual way: the Rotate lane
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Open Crisp and drop in your video
Get the free Crisp app for Mac and drag your clip onto the window. Nothing is uploaded: the whole job runs on your Mac.
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Ask for Rotate
In Crisp, select the clip on your timeline and use Rotate in the Tools panel. Or just type “rotate it 90 degrees” in the prompt bar — Crisp maps plain English to the same tool. It's for video clips; if you've staged a photo, Crisp will nudge you to pick a video.
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Choose a direction
Rotate right (90° clockwise) or Rotate left (90° counter-clockwise) for a sideways clip, 180° for an upside-down one, or Mirror to flip it horizontally.
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Press Rotate
Crisp rotates on-device with hardware encoding, keeps the audio, and saves the result beside your original: one-time. Staged several clips? Crisp Pro rotates each one in the same batch (batch is part of the one-time $129 Pro unlock; one file at a time is free).
Why the same clip looks sideways in only some apps
Phones often record upright but store the video sideways with a little rotation flag that says "turn me 90° on playback". Some players honour that flag; others ignore it, which is why the same file looks fine in Photos but sideways in a browser or on another device. Crisp doesn't rely on the flag: it bakes the rotation into the actual pixels and clears the flag, so the clip plays the right way up everywhere.
What each rotation does to the frame — and to the sound
Crisp offers five transforms, and the one thing worth knowing before you pick is which of them change the shape of the frame. A quarter turn swaps width and height; a half turn and the two mirrors leave them exactly as they were.
| Transform | What it does | 1920×1080 becomes |
|---|---|---|
| Rotate right 90° | quarter turn clockwise | 1080×1920 (upright) |
| Rotate left 90° | quarter turn anticlockwise | 1080×1920 (upright) |
| 180° | upside down | 1920×1080 (unchanged) |
| Mirror | flip left-to-right | 1920×1080 (unchanged) |
| Flip vertical | flip top-to-bottom | 1920×1080 (unchanged) |
That matters more than it sounds: a 90° rotate turns a landscape clip into a genuine portrait file, which is what Reels, Shorts and TikTok want, and what a 16:9 timeline will letterbox. If you wanted the picture upright inside a landscape frame instead, rotate and then crop.
Your audio is not touched by any of them. A rotate re-encodes the picture — it has to, because the pixels genuinely move — but the sound is stream-copied straight across, so it comes out bit-identical and gains no generation loss however many times you rotate the file. The one exception is a source whose audio the output container cannot legally carry — ADPCM inside an .avi, WMA inside a .wmv — where Crisp re-encodes that track to AAC rather than fail the job. Ordinary iPhone, camera and screen-recording footage takes the copy path.
Crisp vs QuickTime vs iMovie for rotating a clip
| Crisp | QuickTime | iMovie | Online rotators | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rotate 90° / 180° / mirror | Yes — all four | 90° only | Yes | Yes |
| Plain-English ("my video is sideways") | Yes | No | No | No |
| Bakes rotation into the pixels | Yes | Metadata only* | Yes | Yes |
| Rotate + enhance in one step | Yes | No | No | No |
| 100% offline, nothing uploaded | Yes | Yes | Yes | Uploads your clip |
| No watermark | With Pro ($129) | Yes | Yes | Often watermarked |
| Price | Free tier + one-time $129 · or 4 × $32.25 | Free | Free | Free + upsell |
*QuickTime's rotate often just sets the rotation flag, so the clip can still look sideways in players that ignore it. Crisp bakes it in.
Why offline matters for rotating video
- Your footage stays yours. The web "rotate video online" tools upload your clip first. Crisp rotates it entirely on your Mac — nothing leaves the device.
- No queue, no size cap. Cloud rotators throttle by file size and make you wait; Crisp works on the whole file locally.
- It plays right everywhere. By baking the rotation into the pixels, Crisp fixes the "upright in one app, sideways in another" problem for good.
- Batch a whole set. Stage several sideways clips and Crisp turns each one upright in a single batch.
Rotate your first clip — offline
Free to try on your Mac. Fix a sideways or upside-down clip in seconds — no account, no subscription, nothing leaves your device.
Download Crisp for MacApple Silicon · macOS 26+ · Notarized
Rotation questions
How do I rotate a video on a Mac for free?
Use Crisp: drop your clip in, select the clip and type it in the prompt bar (or type "rotate it right" or "my video is sideways"), choose a direction, and press Rotate. It rotates the clip and keeps the audio, entirely on your Mac, with no account, no upload.
How do I fix a sideways phone video?
A sideways clip just needs a 90° turn — type "my video is sideways" or pick Rotate right / Rotate left. Crisp turns it upright and bakes the rotation in, so it plays correctly in every player, not just one.
Can I flip it upside down or mirror it?
Yes — 180° flips an upside-down clip, and Mirror flips it horizontally (handy for reversed front-camera footage).
Does rotating drop the audio or hurt quality?
No. The audio is kept, and Crisp hardware-encodes the picture at high quality on Apple Silicon, writing the file locally and atomically so you can check it immediately.
Can I rotate a photo?
The Rotate lane is video-only. If you've staged a photo, Crisp will point you to a video clip.
Related guides
Make a video vertical · Crop a video · Trim a video