Flip video

1. 1

   Add the video

   Drop it in. A still shows it mirrored left to right to start.

2. 2

   Pick the flip

   Horizontal swaps left and right; vertical turns the picture upside down as in a reflection.

3. 3

   Save and download

   Play the result to check it, then download the MP4.

Webcams and some camera apps record the front camera the way a mirror shows you, so writing on a shirt or a sign reads backwards. A horizontal flip puts it the right way round.

A vertical flip mirrors top and bottom, like a reflection in water. That's different from turning the video 180°, which you can do here too.

This page saves a flip into the picture: every frame is mirrored and encoded again as H.264 at high quality, so the video looks the same in every app and on every site.

A flip can also go into the MP4's orientation tag, which is instant and copies every frame as it is. Chrome, macOS and recent versions of ffmpeg follow a flipped tag, but while nearly every phone video has a turn in its tag, a flip in the tag is rare, so some apps and sites may not follow it. Pick "Orientation tag" for a video that stays on your own devices.

FFmpeg's hflip filter mirrors left to right, and vflip mirrors top to bottom. Both encode the video again, and this command copies the sound:

• ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf hflip -c:a copy output.mp4

No. It's flipped and saved in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Flipping mirrors the video, so left becomes right. Rotating turns it, so writing stays readable but lies on its side or upside down.

Saving into the picture encodes the video again at high quality, close to the original but not identical. The orientation tag copies every frame as it is.

No. Left and right in the sound stay as they were; only the picture is mirrored.