How to Rotate and Flip a Video in VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player can do a lot more to videos than just playing it. We know that it can convert videos or stream them from online sources. Those are some of the good uses of VLC Media Player. Now comes the time to share an interesting use of VLC Media Player. This interesting use of VLC Media Player is to rotate videos while playing them.

Videos can be rotated, flipped and even transposed for different purposes. Videos can be simply rotated by clockwise 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees. You can also rotate the video by arbitrary angles such as 1 degree, 27 degrees and so on. Besides rotating, videos can also be flipped horizontally and vertically. Finally, videos can also be transposed or anti-transposed, which flips and rotates the videos at the same time. You will be surprised by the number of things that VLC Media Player can do with videos.

To rotate, flip or transpose videos in VLC Media Player:

  1. From the VLC Media Player menu, go to Tools > Effects and Filters [Shortcut: CTRL + E].
    vlc-tools-effects-filters
  2. From the Adjustment and Effects, go to the “Video Effects” tab.
    vlc-video-effects-tab
  3. Go to the sub tab of Video Effects that says “Geometry”.
    vlc-effects-geometry
  4. Check on the checkbox beside the text that says “Transform”. There you will find options to do the following to your video:
    • Rotate by Fixed Angle: Click on transform, to rotate a video by a certain fixed and a standard number of degrees: 90, 180 and 270 degrees. Those can be selected from the drop-down after you check the transform button.
    • Flip Videos: From the drop-down select on “Flip horizontally” or “Flip vertically” to flip the videos in those directions.
    • Transpose: Click on “Transpose” and “Anti-transpose” from the same drop-down to flip as well as rotate the video. Transpose is when your video is rotated 270 degrees clockwise and flipped horizontally. Anti-transpose is the result when your video is rotated by 90 degrees clockwise and flipped horizontally.
      vlc-video-transform
    • Rotate by Certain Angle: Check on the checkbox beside the text that says “Rotate”. Move the angle dialer around. Your video will be rotated by a certain arbitrary degree.
      vlc-video-rotate-angle

Note: Remember that this rotation setting is saved and when you open a new video, it will still be rotated. You will have to come to this section to uncheck the boxes to disable rotation for playing other videos.

To Make the Rotation Permanent

The steps that you followed above just rotated the video for playing only. If you want to make the rotation permanent, follow these instructions after the above steps:

  • From the menu bar, go to Media > Convert / Save. [CTRL + R]
  • Click on Add, and browse and add the current video.
  • Click on Convert/Save.
    Browse and Add Video
  • In the Convert dialog, click on Settings next to the Profile.
    Profile Settings
  • In the Profile edition dialog, navigate to Video Codec > Filters tab tab
  • Activate the Video transformation filter.
    Video Codec Filter
    Note: Activate the Rotate video filter if the video was rotated at an angle like 59 degrees.
  • Switch to the Audio codec tab, and choose MP3 as the Codec under Encoding parameters.
    MP3 Codec
  • In the Convert dialog, don’t forget to choose a Destination file and press Start.

  • Hit Play to begin the transformation process.

The video will be rotated and the changes will be permanently saved in the destination file. If the player minimizes, bring it back up. If the transformation process has not started, press Play in VLC controls. The position seeker will show the progress of the conversion.

Some Uses of Rotating a Video

  • Correcting a video that has been taken in the wrong way or angle. For example the person who took the video decides to rotate the camera device while taking the video. One way to watch it normally is to rotate it by VLC.
  • Watching the video in style by rotating it in a certain angle.
  • Filling up a portrait video of the entire area of a widescreen. When a video’s height is longer than the width, the screen displays black areas on the left and right. In such a case, rotating the video by 90 degrees or 270 degrees will help fill up the entire monitors which have more width then height normally.

Video Tutorial

109 thoughts to “How to Rotate and Flip a Video in VLC Media Player”

  1. VLC Dev should focus on the UX too. Because users like simplicity and they like to do things fast and easy. I installed VLC for the first time on my windows OS, but things were very complicated on VLC, so I installed PotPlayer. And PotPlayer is very easy to use and control. To rotate a video I just had to press Alt+K and it is done. But to the the same thing on VLC I gotta go through a whole bunch of stuffs. On PotPlayer if I open a video file, the file open according to the resolution, but that is not happening in VLC. VLC has a lot of features but most of the users don’t even need them. All they care to get things done easily. So focus on the UX and make it easier for the users to use. Even Gnome default player is better than VLC in this case.

  2. If those Options didn’t Help try this.
    Its likely that you have a Filter that is toggled on and its not thru the ” Effects & Filters ”

    Go Thru ” Tools > Preference
    @Simple Pref Menu -Go to the very “Bottom Left ” and tick ” ALL ” on Show Settings.
    @Advance Pref Menu -Go down to the “Bottom” under “Video” Cat. and Select Filters.

    In the Filters tab, there should be a Check marked on Rotate Video Filter.

    Un-Check that Demon and Save your Sanity. 😀

    1. This is ridiculous. I just use Windows Movie Maker.

      I don’t know why rotating a video is such a big deal It is even problematic with Windows Movie Maker, but at least a normal person can do it.

      It is just a common sense feature and VLC needs to to something about it.

  3. Can you not see how stupid it is to have to go through 40 odd steps just to rotate a bloody video, is this not a design flaw that the simplest of tasks takes a bloody 4 page user manual!

  4. I have a video that is taken with the camera being rotated as much as 90 degrees from side to side. it is unwatchable in it’s current form.

    I can watch it with the geometry feature and I loaded the video. turn-on geometry, then hit screen capture and it did not save it with me rotating the screen as per my view. I was hoping that screen capture would be to save what I was watching. it just saved the raw video without my geometry attempts. maybe I turned screen capture on too soon before I started using geometry ? any ideas ?

  5. I have two videos, one of which needs to be rotated 90 degrees. I rotated this and saved it but then the other video was rotated. I kept trying but both videos are affected, although only the video I altered was open in VLC. A strange problem, but I cannot figure out how to solve it. Can anyone help?

    1. I figured out what is going on. This instruction does not alter the video I am trying to rotate. Instead, it alters the program — VLC Player itself. This in itself is useless for most instances in which one wants to rotate a video. To rotate the video itself, it is necessary to follow the procedure under the heading “To Make the Rotation Permanent” above.

      The instructions are confusing because the title is “How to Rotate and Flip a Video …” although that is not what the procedure does (it alters VLC Player itself to rotate videos when playing them).

  6. Thank you so much for this super helpful post! So detailed and at just the right level for me – solved my problem, I am happy 🙂

  7. I am trying to rotate the output from Adobe Rush. Using VLC, the image is rotated but the aspect ratio is NOT rotated. I.e, the view window is not rotated. It works properly with Freemake. I saw this error posted for VLC from EIGHT YEARS AGO! Is it still not fixed? How is this possible?

  8. Rotating video always results in frame loss. From 4K 30fps to 10fps. Have no idea why. Happens in Adobe Premiere pre and post too. Have i7-5820K CPU @ 4GHz and good enough AMD GPU. Couldn’t find an answer online. Has anyone experienced such issue?

  9. There is no “Tool” menu on Mac.

    Under Window-> Video Effects -> Geometry there is no “Rotate” option/dial on Mac.

    Pretty much NONE of these instructions seem to apply to the current version (3.0.11) on a Mac. 🙁

  10. Hello Admin, and thank you for your work. I follow all the instructions and even tried from the preferences menu to always apply the video filter. But every time I get a file of 1Ko instead of the 1.4Go I expect. Does it not work for such a heavy file?

  11. I have a different (maybe related?) problem, to whichı can’t find a solution. I have a big, vertical video (shot for IGTV) and want to compress it. When I use the convert option, the output (though I choose for iPhone) always comes out as a horizontal, pressed from top and bottom, video. Do you maybe know what I’m doing wrong?

  12. Hi, great way to fix the problem, but it seems I need the menu open while watching the video, then when I need to switch it 180 degrees I need to ‘then’ tick the transform box, which is already set at 180 degrees. The flip happens during the video is playing so I have to have my finger on the mouse ready to click. I want to correct the switch without the need to flip 180 while I watch, which is a little annoying.
    Is there a way to save the video so that it flips at the right point? 1st part of the video is fine, then the phone recording was switched 180 while recording. So the switch needs to happen one and only at a certain point. Just 1 switch but how do I save that 180 switch so I can watch the video and when the picture flips 180 the 180 correction is corrected at that point?
    That was hard to describe, I hope I made sense. Remember, the flip happens part way through the recording so I’d like it to switch at that very point in the vid. And hopefully save it so, during playback it flips without me having to flip the screen manually.
    Thanks for any help.

  13. Beware if the VLC player warns you that “this video already exists” and by clicking OK, or whatever, at that point will erase your original video. (Not the exact wording VLC used here but I did click “OK” or whatever & lost my video)

      1. Think again. VLC just gave me this warning and I had SPECIFICALLY changed the name to the original file name with “rotated” appended – and it showed the modified name in the warning. That file does NOT already exist but it THINKS it does, and if you click “save” or “ok” or whatever the “accept” option is, it overwrites the ORIGINAL file. It takes MULTIPLE clicks to actually dismiss the warning without allowing it to overwrite the (wrong) file. I had to try to dismiss that warning like 8 times before it actually quit telling me I was about to overwrite a file that, in reality, does not and has never existed. This is a bug. A HUGE bug.

  14. I cannot find the corrected file in the destination folder, like no matter what. Checked all the steps multiple times and that’s all fine. Please help.

  15. I found that this program displays my (upside down) videos in the correct orientation, but other players do not. Just pressing ‘save’ without selecting any special options saved the videos right side up. Not sure if that’s the ‘correct’ procedure, but it worked for me. Thank you!

  16. I am just getting familiar with VLC and find it very useful to take photos from videos and trim them .However when the video clip is saved on my computer it is the wrong way round so I cant share it with anyone.Fine if reload on VLC but I would like to share clip right way round on Facebook is this not possible.Any advice welcomed

  17. Thanks for the VLC player .3.0.8 Vetinari . Love the rotate function . now trying to do a permanent convert on one video file size 363Mb to check if it works . i mounted my Hero Session wrong way round under bike helmet thinking the AUTO ROTATE works on camera . Should have checked it before i started taking 28Gb of videos.

    Johan ZS6AF

  18. This is a very painful process. I don’t want to EDIT (Transform) and SAVE my video and then view the new video. I just would like to view the video rotated. Far too many videos these days taken on mobiles in vertical position which show up sideways. Please give us some simple key combo to rotate by 90 degrees (clockwise or anti-CW).

      1. Sir, I followed all your steps but why is it that when I’m about to view the video, there is only audio, the video disappeared.

    1. Yes, a shortcut or hotkey would be much appreciated and better than going thru all those steps just to temporarily rotate a video 90 degrees!

    2. I asked VLC to add a few shortcuts for a few simple things and they shooed me away. I’m a programmer, I know it would take a good guy about 10 minutes to do a good job of this, but noooooo

  19. When I follow the directions, I get a pop up message saying, “The output file already exists. If recording continues, the file will be overridden and its content will be lost.” When I find the file, it only plays the audio and no video. Please tell me how I can resolve this?

  20. I would love to be able to put a rotate left and rotate right button in my interface controls.

    one click
    vs.
    Pull Tool Menu
    Select Effect and Filter
    Find and click video effect tab
    Find and click video geometry tab
    Click transform checkbox
    Pull down and select angle
    Click close

    All that versus one click. It’ll take you a couple minutes.

    Please, I’m begging you.

  21. I follow your instructions to rotate my video and it is ok but how can i also rotate the resolution. My original video is in portrait and i want to rotate my video by 270′ in landscape mode

    1. We can’t rotate the resolution, however we can crop the video to turn it into the desired resolution after we have rotated it.

  22. Nothing happens when I go to Tools > Effects and Filters > “Video Effects” Tab > “Geometry” Tab, then click on “Transform” and select “Rotate by 90 degrees”. I click save, the video stays the same. Same thing with the rotate dial (90 degrees).

    This happened version 3.0.7 on both Windows and Ubuntu.

  23. Thanks a lot for the information, as i was dealing with this vertical screen problem for a long time and finally it is resolved. May Allah Bless you.

  24. The process works perfectly until I open the saved file and it was much much shorter than the original video. Is there a size limit on this?

  25. to rotate vlc on osx , window – video effects – geometry tab – transform tick box and the rotation amount required NB this is a view change for the player, all files will be rotated when this box is ticked.Better than getting a sore neck though?

  26. I just downloaded 3.1.0.0 in hopes of rotating a video. I am not able to find the tools menu. Does it exist in this version? I only have settings, where i do see a rotate button, however it does not rotate video. What am i doing wrong? Please help! Thanks!

  27. When I rotate the video, or flip/transpose, I get a large green bar on the left of the video. How do I fix that?

  28. Hi. The rotate dial is a really nifty feature, but is there any way to rotate a video and still be able to see the entire frame? i.e. if I rotate a 16:9 frame by say 40 degrees, the corners of the frame are lost off the edges of the window. I’ve tried fiddling with crop and aspect ratio but can’t seem to fix it. Thanks.

  29. I followed the instructions, but now the video has no sound when played on windows media. How do I preserve the sound?

        1. Had same issue, this resolved it:
          In the Convert dialog
          Click tools/wrench
          click tab: Audio codec
          check: Keep original audio track

  30. after following your instructions the saved file is flipped but its not flipped the way I had it in VLC. The original file was sideways, in VLC I flipped it 90 degrees. When I look at the converted filf its upside down.

  31. Hi … i only have a couple rotate options. how can i avail of the rotate ( all degrees )
    do i have to download a special version of VLC

  32. Hello, I have rotated a video;however,

    1. it wont play with windows media player, it opens the file to the screen though.

    2. It plays in Movies & TV but without original audio.

    3. It plays in VLC perfectly.

    Any thoughts why 1 and 2 happen and how to fix them?

    Thanks

    1. There does seem to be an issue with video files converted through VLC when using in other players. It must be the codecs or something that are used by the software.

  33. I tried to make the mirrored version permanent with your instructions in VLC, but it would not work. Is there any software (preferably free or not very expensive) that I can SAVE A MIRRORED VIDEO image? (SO THAT IT WILL PLAY BACK MIRRORED, ON OTHER VIDEO PLAYERS/SOFTWARE). THANKS!

      1. Does No one read the instructions in the article? Good thing I’m not “Admin” I’d get fired.
        You’re getting an extremely versatile bit of kit FOR FREE !
        Read the instructions properly then read them again, hell, open a screen on your desktop and follow it blow by blow.
        I do, it works.
        Stop Whinging.

  34. Please, add toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcut for video rotating.
    It is half of 2017 now and still no toolbar buttons and no keyboard shortcut to rotate video.
    Two toolbar buttons – one for rotating in 90° steps left, second in 90° steps right
    and keyboard shortcut – in steps by 90° (first press 90°, second 180°, third 270°, fourth back to 0°)
    will be very helpfull for lots of users.
    Almost everybody has smartfone now and is shooting videos – normal oriented and rotated.

  35. How can I set a hotkey to cycle through the 90 degree increments? It’s really frustrating to have to keep coming back to the settings screen to set the correct rotation for each of the various videos I need to review.

  36. I have rotated three videos and saved them checking the video transform option but they are only rotated when played back on VLC player, trying to ulpoad to FB or Youtube renders them in their original format, am I missing something to make the rotation permanent?

    1. You need to choose “Video transformation filter” in the conversion process. Probably missed that one.

  37. I have a use case for this that doesn’t seem to be mentioned in the discussions I’ve encountered. If this is unusual, hopefully it will at least be amusing
    – I like to watch videos in bed
    – I want to lie on my left side, and watch on my laptop as it rests on its right edge on my bedside table (laptop power input is on left)
    – I don’t want/need to edit the actual video
    – This isn’t about EXIF information in the video
    – Sometimes I watch videos upright, so would prefer the default to be normal vertical orientation

    I can install a third party app to flip the whole OS, or use the menu to get to “video effects -> geometry -> etc” but this seems sub optimal when:
    a) the feature exists to flip
    b) VLC has configurable hotkeys

    1. You can use hotkeys to rotate the screen of your laptop. usualy CTl+ALT+Left arrow, or right arrow, or Down to achieve the view you wish. No need to rotate the video..

  38. still looking for a way to rotate with keyboard shortcut without having to go through the menus with the mouse.

  39. Thanks! I’m using VLC player to learn a dance, and if I put the computer in the best position to see the screen throughout the dance, I end up facing the opposite way from the woman in the demo video. Now I’ll be able to practice more easily by flipping it. I’ve already been helped by the option to slow the playback, for which I’m quite thankful!

  40. I need to rotate a particular video without effecting resolution of other videos. Please guide me how I can do this. I am doing it in VLC but it is effecting all the videos. Please suggest me some software where I can rotate particular video

    1. Remove the rotate effect from the same place so that all the future videos that you watch in VLC are not rotated.

    1. The option is present in VLC > Preferences (Click Show All) and you will find it under Video > Filters > Rotate. Then you can choose it from Window > Video Filters.

  41. VLC rotated ALL the videos on my computer, NOT just the one I had selected. That is SO STUPID !!!!!! And there is nowhere / no information about how to UNDO this HORRIFIC STUPIDITY …. nor is there ANY WARNING that changing ONE video changes ALL videos !!!!!!!.

    1. Go to Tools > Effects and Filters > Video Effects > Geometry and check off the Transform option to play the videos in their original form.

  42. Hey! After i rotated my video the video seems to lag real bad and it stops at one frame although the sound plays normally. Can someone help me fix this , why is this happening?

  43. I downloaded the first ep of Finding Jesus about the shroud and for some readon the video is flipped horizontally. I know how to use the this feature, but the CNN logo is backwards and on the wrong side of the screen and the Finding Jesus is backwards and on the wrong side of the screen as well. I thought that flipping it horizontally would fix it? Nope. Made it worse. How do I fix this?

  44. recently. whenever i have used this feature it has made the video slow and unwatchable? why? any fix I can use?

    1. VLC is not a video editor and the effects that you use will just effect the video for the current session only. If you want a video editor that can rotate a video permanently use other software like: HandBrake.

      1. New question when I play a video downloaded from my I phone it plays upside on some computers and on others it plays correctly how do I fix that

      2. But this is not what the video and instructions say. They show how to rotate, and then supposedly how to make the change permanent. Moreover, when you “transform” and rotate 90 degrees, this does not only affect the one session. Even after rebooting, everything comes out rotated 90 degrees unless one goes back to tools and unclicks transform. This has occurred several times for me on a Win 7 machine, and that is not what we are led to believe will happen.

        1. VLC is not the best tool to edit your videos but it is easily available for most of us. Anyways, a crucial step is to enable the “Video transformation filter” and hit save. Revisit the same area to check if the filter is still checked and applied after you hit save. It might be the reason your video isn’t permanently transformed.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.