How to rotate & flip video with FFmpeg

There are two ways to "rotate" a video. You can re-encode with the transpose filter, which actually rewrites the pixels, or you can flip an orientation flag in the metadata, which is instant and lossless but relies on the player honoring it. Both have their place.

Rotate 90° (clockwise / counter-clockwise)

# 90° clockwise
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "transpose=1" -c:a copy out.mp4

# 90° counter-clockwise
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "transpose=2" -c:a copy out.mp4

The values: 0 = 90° CCW + vertical flip, 1 = 90° CW, 2 = 90° CCW, 3 = 90° CW + vertical flip.

Rotate 180°

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "transpose=2,transpose=2" -c:a copy out.mp4
# equivalent, often faster:
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "hflip,vflip" -c:a copy out.mp4

Mirror (flip) a video

# horizontal mirror (selfie-style)
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "hflip" -c:a copy out.mp4

# vertical flip (upside down)
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "vflip" -c:a copy out.mp4

Fix sideways phone video losslessly

Phones often record sideways and set a rotation flag. To re-tag without re-encoding the pixels — instant and lossless — set the orientation metadata instead:

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -metadata:s:v rotate=90 -c copy out.mp4

If a player ignores the flag, fall back to a real transpose re-encode above.

Rotate visually instead

FFmpegLab rotates and flips with a click and writes the matching transpose/hflip command, so you can fix orientation without remembering filter values — running fully offline. Then compress or convert for delivery.