iPhones record video as MOV, which some Windows programs, TVs and websites won't play. And phone videos are big: a minute of 4K can be hundreds of megabytes, far too large to email. Both problems have the same fix.
Convert and shrink in one step
- Upload the video to snapWONDERS Convert.
- Choose MP4 as the output format.
- To make it smaller, set the resolution cap (1080p is plenty for most screens; 720p for messaging) and/or lower the quality setting. You'll often see no difference on a phone screen.
- Switch on Strip Metadata to remove the device, creation time and any location from the copy.
- Download the MP4.
It's free and needs no account, and more than 350 video formats are supported as input. Free accounts can convert up to 200 MB and three videos per job.
A worked example: an iPhone clip
We converted a short iPhone clip of a tram (MOV) to MP4, with the resolution cap at 1080 and Strip Metadata on:
- Size: 14.0 MB as a MOV, 5.7 MB as an MP4.
- Resolution: 1080 × 1920 before, 608 × 1080 after. On a portrait clip the cap limits the height, so it comes out narrower. Leave the cap off to keep the full resolution.
- Phone details: the original named the iPhone model and its exact lens, and recorded the moment filming began. The converted copy has none of that.
The report on the converted copy: no location and no date. The one device line left names the software that converted it (FFmpeg), not the phone.
What makes a video smaller
- Resolution: halving the width and height cuts the size to roughly a quarter.
- Compression: a higher compression setting trades a little detail for a much smaller file.
- Frame rate: 30 frames a second is plenty for most video; 60 doubles the data.
- Length: trimming the start and end is the easiest saving of all.
Keep the original
Converting and compressing throw information away for good. Keep the original somewhere safe and share the smaller copy.
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