How to make vertical screen recordings on a Mac

The short answer

• Use 9:16 at 1080 × 1920 for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. Use 4:5 (1080 × 1350) for feed posts, and 1:1 (1080 × 1080) when one file has to work everywhere.
• Built-in route: Photos can crop a recording to a vertical shape, but the crop is one fixed rectangle for the whole video. iMovie's movie projects on the Mac are widescreen only.
• Shotnix: open the recording, choose 9:16, 4:5, or 1:1 from the aspect menu, and the video fills the frame and pans to follow your cursor. Export an MP4 at 1080p.

Why a landscape recording looks bad on a phone

A vertical player fits a wide video to its width. A 16:9 recording in a 1080 × 1920 frame becomes a strip about 608 pixels tall, roughly a third of the screen, with bars above and below. Text that is easy to read on your Mac becomes too small to read on a phone.

YouTube adds a second catch: only square or vertical videos up to three minutes long count as Shorts. A landscape upload is published as a regular video.

The fix is to fill the tall frame with the part of the screen that matters, and to move that window when the action moves.

Set up your recording for a tall frame

• Record a window or a small area instead of the whole display. The narrower the recording, the less of it falls outside a vertical frame.
• Make text bigger. Zoom the app in (⌘+ works in most browsers and editors) so labels stay readable on a phone.
• Keep the action in one part of the screen, and move the pointer on purpose. Viewers follow the pointer, and so does the vertical frame in Shotnix.
• Plan for captions. Many people scroll with the sound off.
• Keep it short. Short clips suit all three feeds, and YouTube stops counting a video as a Short after three minutes.

Method 1: Record a tall area, or crop in Photos

The simplest built-in trick is to record a vertical area in the first place: press ⌘⇧5, choose Record Selected Portion, and draw a tall box around a window you've made narrow. Many websites switch to their mobile layout when the browser window is phone-width, which suits a vertical frame. For a recording you already have, crop it in Photos:

1. Open Photos and choose File → Import to add the screen recording to your library.
2. Double-click the video, then click Edit in the toolbar.
3. Click Crop. In the sidebar, choose a vertical orientation and an aspect ratio; use Custom and enter 9:16 if it isn't listed.
4. Drag the crop rectangle over the part of the screen you want to keep, then click Done.
5. Choose File → Export → Export 1 Video and pick 1080p under Movie Quality.

Note. The crop is one fixed rectangle for the whole video. Anything you click outside it, viewers never see, and there's no way to zoom in on a detail and back out. Importing also adds the recording to your Photos library, and to iCloud Photos if you use it.

Method 2: Fill the frame and follow the cursor in Shotnix

1. Record with Shotnix. Leave Settings → Recording → Editable cursor on (it's on by default); the vertical frame uses that pointer data to know where to look.
2. In the editor, open the aspect menu in the toolbar and choose 9:16, 4:5, or 1:1.
3. The recording fills the frame instead of shrinking into a letterbox, and the view pans to follow your cursor. Your camera bubble, captions, and on-screen keyboard shortcuts stay put in the vertical frame.
4. Where detail matters, add a zoom: press Z or click the Zoom track. A zoom set to Follow cursor keeps the pointer in view.
5. To cut away browser chrome or a busy desktop first, use Crop. The cursor, clicks, and zooms follow the crop.
6. Press ⌘E, choose MP4 at 1080p, and check the size shown before you export: 1080 × 1920 for 9:16.

Note. Following the cursor needs the pointer data Shotnix records, so it isn't available for videos made with other apps. If you'd rather show the whole screen, turn off Fill the Frame, Follow the Cursor in the aspect menu, and the recording sits inside the vertical frame on your background.

Vertical screen recording in Shotnix →

Export settings for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts

All three platforms re-compress what you upload, so there's little to gain from a huge file. In Shotnix, choose MP4, 1080p, 30 fps, Social quality, and H.264. Use 60 fps only for fast scrolling: it doubles the frames, and not every app plays it back at 60.

The optional End card adds a 2-second “Made with Shotnix” outro. It's off unless you switch it on in the export sheet.

• TikTok: 9:16 at 1080 × 1920, MP4 with H.264. A 4K export mostly makes the upload slower.
• Instagram Reels: 9:16 at 1080 × 1920. Reels play full screen, but feed previews and the profile grid crop the top and bottom, so keep the important part near the middle.
• YouTube Shorts: 9:16 at 1080 × 1920 (square also qualifies), three minutes or less. Anything longer, or landscape, is published as a regular video.
• Feed posts on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook: 4:5 at 1080 × 1350 fills most of a phone screen and leaves room for the caption.
• Anywhere else: 1:1 at 1080 × 1080 is the safest single shape.

Keep text clear of the platform's buttons

TikTok, Reels, and Shorts draw their own interface over your video: a column of buttons on the right, and the caption and account name across the bottom. Keep important interface elements, text, and your camera bubble out of the bottom fifth and away from the right edge.

In Shotnix, captions can sit at the top or the bottom in three sizes, and you can drag the camera bubble to any of eight positions. Play the vertical preview through once and move anything that would land under the platform's buttons.

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