Rotate a MOV file

MOV is Apple's QuickTime file format, and MP4 is an international standard that grew out of it. Both are containers. They hold the compressed video, the sound and a few details about the clip, such as its length and which way up to show it.

Because the two are so closely related, the same H.264 or HEVC video can sit in either one unchanged. Moving it from a MOV into an MP4 swaps the wrapper, not the picture.

MOV is common on Apple devices and on many cameras. MP4 is the safer choice for sharing, since web browsers, Android phones and social apps all expect it.

• Opens: MOV files from iPhones, iPads, Macs and cameras, along with MP4, WebM and MKV.
• Decodes on your device: the browser has to understand the video inside the file. Nearly every current browser handles H.264, while HEVC support depends on the browser and the system it runs on.
• Converts when it has to: if the browser can't decode the video, the tool turns it into H.264 on your device first, using a built-in copy of ffmpeg. That step re-encodes, so the result is no longer an exact copy of the original video.
• Saves: MP4 by default. WebM shows up as a Format choice under Export settings only when your browser can encode it. There is no option to save a MOV.

If a project truly needs a .mov, QuickTime Player on a Mac can write one, as described in how to rotate a video on a Mac.

No. A lossless turn keeps the video stream, but that stream always lands in an MP4. The tool lifts the compressed frames out of the MOV and writes them into a new MP4 with an updated rotation value. The AAC sound an iPhone records is copied across beside them.

So the codec doesn't change. An HEVC clip comes out as HEVC in an MP4, and an H.264 clip stays H.264. Expect the MP4 to weigh about the same as the MOV it came from.

Keep the settings from the steps above and the copy route stays open. Rotating without losing quality explains what each one does.

iPhones record HEVC, also called H.265, when Settings → Camera → Formats is set to High Efficiency, which is the default. Most Compatible records H.264 instead. Either way, the clip is saved as a MOV.

HEVC gives a smaller file for the same picture, but not every device can play it. Safari on a Mac or iPhone decodes it. Other browsers usually lean on the operating system and graphics hardware, so the same clip can open on one computer and fail on another.

When the browser can decode it, a quarter turn copies the HEVC video into the MP4 untouched. When it can't, the tool converts the clip to H.264 before you start, which costs some quality but leaves you with a file almost anything can play.

Getting an H.264 file from an HEVC clip

Sometimes H.264 is what you want, for an older TV, a Windows PC without HEVC support or an editor that rejects it. Flips, Fine angles, Crop and Fill always encode H.264 into the MP4. Maximum compatibility does the same whenever the browser can encode H.264, which current browsers normally can.

For a plain turn, Maximum compatibility is the simplest way to get there. The picture is redrawn upright at a high bitrate, so the result also shows correctly in players that ignore rotation values.

A MOV recorded by a camera opens the same way, as long as the browser can decode the video inside it. Clips that use H.264 or HEVC are the easy case.

Some cameras and editing apps write professional codecs that browsers don't decode. Those go through the on-device conversion first, which can take a while for a long or high-resolution clip, and a very large file may be too much for the browser to convert.

A .mov saved by Export As in QuickTime Player opens here like any other, and the rotated copy comes back as an MP4.