Reverse Video

Reverse a video so it plays backwards, with the option to reverse the audio too. Best kept to short clips — reversing has to hold every frame in memory, so the limit here is100MB rather than the usual 500MB. Runs entirely in your browser: no upload, no sign-up, no watermark.

Why this tool has a lower limit than the others

Every other video tool here streams: it reads a frame, processes it, writes it, and forgets it. Reversing cannot work that way. The last frame has to be written first, which means every frame before it must already have been read and held somewhere. The whole clip ends up buffered in memory at once.

That is why the cap is 100MB instead of 500MB, and why it is the one operation on the site that can genuinely exhaust a browser tab. It is a real constraint of the operation, not a limitation of the implementation — desktop editors solve it by buffering to disk, which a web page cannot do.

Worth knowing: file size is only a proxy for the real limit, which is total decoded pixel data. A 30-second 4K clip can hold far more in memory than a two-minute 720p clip of the same file size. If a clip under the cap still fails, that is why.

Keeping a long clip within reach

The fix is always to make the clip smaller before reversing, in whichever dimension you can spare:

1. Trim to just the part you need. Reversed footage is almost always a short effect shot rather than a whole take — trim video has a lossless mode, so this costs nothing.
2. Drop the resolution. Resize video to 720p cuts the pixels per frame to roughly a quarter of 4K, which is the single biggest reduction available.
3. Reverse the small version. Then, if you need it back at full size, upscale afterwards rather than reversing at full size.

Reversed audio, and what it actually sounds like

The Reverse the audio too option is on by default, so sound runs backwards in step with the picture. Untick it for a silent result, which is usually the right choice for social video where you will lay music over the top anyway.

If you do keep it, expect something specific. Reversed speech is unintelligible — a warbling noise rather than words — which is exactly the effect comedy edits are after. Reversed music keeps its rhythm but loses the sharp attack at the start of each note, so it sounds soft and swelling, like every sound is fading in. Reversed impacts are the most striking of all: a smash becomes a rising whoosh followed by silence.

What it is good for

• The classic un-happening. Liquid pouring back into a bottle, a jump that lands on a diving board, scattered objects gathering themselves up.
• Boomerang-style loops. Reverse a clip and merge it after the original for a seamless back-and-forth.
• Sports and technique review. Watching a movement backwards makes the sequence of a swing or a lift oddly easier to read.
• Reveals. Shooting a build-up and reversing it turns assembly into disassembly, which is a staple of short-form content.

For the loop trick, reverse the clip here and then join the two withmerge video, or use loop video if you simply want repetition without the reversal.

What it costs you

There is no lossless route to a reversed clip. A stream copy passes encoded frames through untouched, and those frames only make sense in their original order, so reversing always means decoding and rebuilding. One generation of compression at CRF 21 is the honest cost.

Related video tools

Trim video and resize video are the two tools that get an oversized clip within reach. Loop video repeats a clip andmerge video joins the forward and reversed versions into a boomerang.Speed video pairs well with reversal for slow-motion effects, andmute video strips audio losslessly if you would rather remove it than reverse it. A reversed clip usually ends up as a GIF.