How to rotate and flip videos using Handbrake

HandBrake is a free tool that’s available for Windows, Mac OS and Ubuntu that allows you to take a video in various formats and convert it to an MP4.

Table of contents

The steps below show how to rotate videos using HandBrake.

How to rotate and flip videos using Handbrake

1. If you don’t already have HandBrake, it can be downloaded here:  https://handbrake.fr/
2. Open HandBrake and load your video using the ‘Source’ button
3. Choose where to save the rotated video by clicking on the ‘Browse’ button and select where the converted file will be saved.
4. Open the ‘Filters’ tab
5. 
6. The ‘Rotate’ option allows you to choose four different options
   1. 0 – do nothing
   2. 90 – rotate to the right
   3. 180 – turn upside down
   4. 270 – rotate to the left
7. Choose the rotate option you require
8. Click ‘Start Encode’ to begin
9. At the bottom of the window you will see the progress

 

Help! It didn’t work

Try the manual way of rotating, by applying manual filters.

1. Open the ‘Video’ tab
2. Copy the desired command from below and paste into ‘Advanced Options’
3. Once you have the required command entered, click ‘Start Encode’ to begin
4. 

Rotate 90 degrees clockwise

To rotate 90 degrees clockwise, enter the following command into the ‘Extra Options’ setting:

, --rotate=4

Rotate 90 degrees anti-clockwise

To rotate 90 degrees anti-clockwise, enter the following command into the ‘Extra Options’ setting:

, --rotate=7

Rotate 180 degrees (upside down)

To rotate 180 degrees so that the video is upside down, enter the following command into the ‘Extra Options’ setting:

, --rotate=3

Other options?

The official HandBrake documentation has more detail on what other options are available.

1 : x flip
2 : y flip
3 : 180 degrees rotate (also the DEFAULT)
4 : 90 degrees rotate (clockwise)
5 : 90 degrees rotate + y flip
6 : 270 degrees rotate + y flip
7 : 270 degrees rotate