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← Creator toolkit · Mission 2 of 13

Shrink, trim and reformat any video in seconds

FFmpeg is the free engine inside most video apps. A handful of copy-paste commands cover what creators pay online converters for: smaller files, vertical Reels versions, clean trims, burned-in captions, level audio, speed-ups, GIFs and MP3s.

25 minBeginnerTools: FreeStep 1 free
Tested 7 Oct 2026 · FFmpeg 9.0.2 (gyan.dev build), Windows 11, a 72-second screen recording
FFmpeg installed and working
A smaller copy of any video, without visible quality loss
A 1080x1920 vertical version of a landscape video, ready for Reels or TikTok
  • Clean trims, GIFs and audio pulled out of video
  • Captions burned into the picture, voice levelled to the loudness Reels and YouTube expect, and 1.5x speed-ups with the audio still in sync
  • A one-line batch loop that does a whole folder at once, on Windows, Mac or Linux
Before you start
  • Level 0 done (you can open a terminal and cd into a folder)
  • Any video file to practise on
● What you'll have in 25 minutes
Preview
An 11-second landscape clip and the vertical Reels version FFmpeg made from it with one command, in 8.4 seconds.
01/06Install FFmpeg0 done
STEP 01 of 06~3 min

Install FFmpeg

One command, from the builds that FFmpeg's own download page points to.

  1. Windows
    winget install --id Gyan.FFmpeg -e
    Mac
    brew install ffmpeg
    Linux (Ubuntu or Debian; Fedora: sudo dnf install ffmpeg)
    sudo apt install ffmpeg

  2. Open a new terminal and check it:

    Terminal
    ffmpeg -version
    Output
    ffmpeg version 9.0.2-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2026 the FFmpeg developers
    TipPut your video in its own folder, then cd into that folder before running anything. Every command below reads and writes files in the folder you're in.
    TipLong file names with spaces are easy to get wrong. Drag the file from your file manager and drop it onto the terminal window: it pastes the full path for you, correctly quoted.
✓
Checkpointffmpeg -version prints a version number.
If it breaks'ffmpeg' is not recognised
'ffmpeg' is not recognised
Close every terminal and open a new one. If it still fails, restart the PC so Windows picks up the new install.
Still stuck? Ask the community
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