Spotlight

Crop media

Drop in an image or a video and crop it to any aspect ratio. Pan and zoom under the ratio window, then export a still at source resolution or a trimmed, web-ready MP4.

Get Aspects

One of the tools in Aspects for macOS. $19 once, cloud optional.

Pan and zoom
Move the crop window over the source and zoom it from 1× to 3×. The source fills the whole artboard here: no frame, no margins, nothing between the crop and the edge.
One tool, both outputs
A video can leave as a still or as an MP4, and the picker switches between them without starting over. An image is always a still.
Any aspect ratio
Thirteen presets from 9:16 to 2.39:1, or a custom W×H. Changing the ratio reshapes the crop window; the source is never touched.
Trim
For an MP4, start and end fractions on the source, set against a preview that loops inside them. For a still, scrub to the exact frame you want.
Image formats
PNG, JPEG, progressive JPEG, HEIC, AVIF and WebP, with a quality slider on the lossy ones. Sampled from the original file, not the preview on screen.
Progressive MP4
H.264 at a Web, Standard or High preset, roughly 2, 5 and 12 Mbps, with the moov atom written to the front so a browser can start playing before the download finishes.

What it is for

Getting an image or a video to a specific shape when the shape is not negotiable. A 9:16 Reel from a landscape video. A 4:5 feed post from a photograph. A square thumbnail from something that was never square.

Crop is the unframed sibling of Frame. There is no margin and no ground — the source fills the entire output, and you decide what stays inside the frame by panning and zooming it under the ratio window.

How it works

Set the output ratio first, because it is the window everything else moves behind. Then drag to pan and scroll to zoom until the composition sits where you want it. What is inside the window is the export.

For a video source you get the same controls plus a trim, and a choice of output: a still frame scrubbed from anywhere in the clip, or the trimmed clip itself as an MP4.

The ratios name their destinations

You should not have to remember which number belongs to which platform, so the presets say:

  • 9:16 — Reels, Stories, TikTok, Shorts
  • 4:5 — the Instagram and Facebook portrait feed
  • 3:4 — Instagram's profile grid preview, which moved from square in 2025
  • 1:1 — a square post
  • 1.91:1 — a link preview card, LinkedIn or X
  • 16:9 — YouTube and anywhere landscape video is expected

Print and photography ratios are there too — 2:3, 5:7, 4:3, and the cinematic widths up to 2.39:1.

Compression, for video

Video crops carry a compression preset that controls bitrate and whether the file is optimised for streaming. A 40MB clip that has to go through a messaging app is a different job from an archive master, and the preset is where you say which one this is.

What you get

  • PNG or JPEG for a still
  • MP4 for a trimmed video, at your chosen compression
  • Batch export across a set, same as Frame

One honest limitation

Cropping only removes. If the composition needs something that was never in the source — headroom above a subject, width beyond the edge — no crop will produce it, and Frame with a matching ground is the better tool.