How to Flip a Video on iPhone, Android, Mac and PC

To flip a video, open it in an editor and use the flip or mirror control. On iPhone it’s in the Photos app: tap Edit, then the crop icon, then the flip button in the top corner. On a computer, QuickTime Player has Edit, then Flip Horizontal, and Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and CapCut all have a flip toggle on the clip. A horizontal flip mirrors the picture left to right. A vertical flip turns it upside down. If the clip is only sideways, you want rotate, not flip.

Why does your video look backwards?

You filmed yourself with the front camera, and now the text on your shirt reads backwards, or the shelf behind you is on the wrong side. Or you have two clips of the same walk, and in one you go left and in the next you go right, so the cut feels like a jump. Or a phone clip came out sideways and the whole thing plays on its side.

These are three different problems, and each one has its own fix. Pick the wrong one and a quick fix makes the clip worse.

What does a wrong flip cost you?

Flip the wrong clip and every word in the frame turns to mirror writing: signs, a logo on a mug, the screen you’re pointing at. Mirror writing is easy to spot, and it reads as a mistake. Rotate a clip that only needed a mirror and the subject ends up on its side. Either way, the clip gets posted as is or thrown out, and the shot you planned never makes the video.

Flip, mirror or rotate: which one do you need?

Term	What it does	Use it when
Flip horizontal (mirror)	Swaps left and right	Front-camera footage, matching screen direction between cuts
Flip vertical	Swaps top and bottom	Rare: a camera mounted upside down, or a reflection effect
Rotate 90°	Turns the picture a quarter turn	A phone clip that plays sideways
Rotate 180°	Turns the picture upside down, left and right swap too	A camera mounted upside down

“Mirror” and “flip horizontal” mean the same thing in most apps. A vertical flip and a 180° rotation are not the same: a vertical flip keeps left on the left, a 180° turn swaps it too.

How do you flip a video on iPhone?

Open the video in Photos and tap Edit.
Tap the crop icon at the bottom.
Tap the flip button (two triangles with an arrow) in the top-left corner to mirror the clip. The button next to it rotates it 90° at a time.
Tap Done.

Photos flips the whole clip. It has no vertical flip, but two quarter turns plus a mirror gets you there.

How do you flip a video on Android?

Google Photos can rotate a video (Edit, then Crop, then the rotate button) but on many phones it has no mirror. For a true flip, use an editor app: in CapCut, select the clip, tap Edit, then Mirror. Samsung Gallery’s video editor has rotate and flip under the crop tool on recent models.

How do you flip a video on Mac or PC?

QuickTime Player (Mac): open the video, then Edit and Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical. Save with File, then Export As.
iMovie (Mac): select the clip, open Clip Filter above the viewer and pick Flipped.
Premiere Pro: drag the Horizontal Flip or Vertical Flip effect from Effects, then Transform, onto the clip.
DaVinci Resolve: select the clip, open the Inspector, and click the flip icons under Transform.
CapCut desktop: select the clip and use the Mirror control in the video panel.
Windows: Clipchamp, the editor built into Windows 11, has rotate and flip options in the toolbar over the preview.

When should you not flip a clip?

Text in the frame. A sign, a shirt, a laptop screen or a product label turns into mirror writing. Crop it out or leave the clip as it is.
Faces people know. Faces aren’t symmetric, so a mirrored face can look slightly off to people who know it.
Hands and gestures. A right-handed guitarist becomes left-handed, and anyone who plays will notice.
A clip that only needs reversing. Playing a clip backwards is a different effect. See how to reverse a video.

How do you flip clips inside an edit with Cut Express?

Cut Express is a video editor you drive from Claude. You upload your clips, say what you want, and Claude writes the edit while Cut Express renders the MP4. Flip and rotate are settings on each clip in the edit, so you don’t export a flipped copy of every file first:

Flip mirrors a clip horizontally, vertically or both.
Rotate turns a clip 90°, 180° or 270°, for a phone clip shot sideways.
Crop works on the picture after the flip and rotation, so “keep the left half” means the left half you see.
Overlays (a logo, a second clip, a photo) take a flip too, and can rotate to any angle.

Before it cuts, Claude looks at your footage frame by frame, so “mirror the clips where I walk to the left” lands on the right shots instead of a guess.

A prompt that gets a good first version:

“Make a 9:16 Reel from these five clips. Mirror the two selfie clips so the text on my mug reads right way round, rotate the sideways clip, and keep my face in the upper third.”

Then give notes like “undo the flip on clip 3” and the next version renders. New to it? Here’s how to upload your footage. For changing the shape of the picture, see how to crop a video and horizontal video to vertical.

FAQ

Does flipping a video lower its quality?

No. A flip or a 90° rotation moves pixels without throwing any away. Quality only drops if the app re-encodes at a lower bitrate when you export.

How do I stop my front camera from mirroring?

On iPhone, Settings, then Camera, then Mirror Front Camera controls whether photos are saved mirrored. Many Android camera apps have a similar switch in their settings. For clips you already shot, flip them in an editor.

Can I flip only part of a video?

Yes. Split the clip where the flip should start and flip that piece. In an edit with several clips, flip only the clips that need it.

Does flipping a video change the audio?

No. A flip changes the picture only. Stereo left and right stay where they were.

More guides on the blog.

Flip your next edit with Cut Express

Send the clips, say which ones to mirror or turn, and get the MP4 back. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, so you can try it on your own footage before you pay; after that, Pro is $19 a month. See the plans.