Crop tool not working on desktop Photos app only with landscape iPhone videos not portrait videos!

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Level 1

5 points

Crop tool not working on desktop Photos app only with landscape iPhone videos not portrait videos!

I just stumbled across a very strange bug I've not noticed before with the desktop Photos app. If I import a video shot on my iPhone 15 Pro into my desktop Photos app (running on a 13" M1 MacBook Pro) I can use the crop tools fine with portrait videos but NOT with landscape videos! With landscape videos the crop tools do not appear and the Photos app appears to freeze so that even if you hit "Done" you don't return to the main library and the app doesn't appear to respond to anything and needs to be closed down and re-opened.

I'm scratching my head at this one as it doesn't make a lot of sense - has anyone else come across this bug or able to recreate it on their system? The operating system on my MacBook Pro is Sequoia 15.5 and on my iPhone 15 Pro it's 18.5. On my MacBook Pro I have 8GB of RAM and 15GB of available disk space. I'm shooting regular "high efficiency"/HEVC videos on my iPhone (PAL, 4K, 25 fps) and not using ProRes/HDR mode.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Sep 3, 2025 06:07 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 3, 2025 08:34 AM in response to davecw

davecw wrote: … On my MacBook Pro I have 8GB of RAM and 15GB of available disk space.

I have no problem cropping landscape videos. But I'm a bit surprised you can do much of anything with only 15GB of storage remaining. Apple recommends keeping at least 10% of your storage free. I know that I've seen apps exhibit strange behavior when my 1TB drive got less than 150 GB free.

Try getting 10 or 15% of your storage free, and see how it works. Let us know…

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

214,374 points

Sep 3, 2025 09:16 AM in response to davecw

I am able to use the crop tool on portrait oriented videos. I also agree with Richard that you do not have enough free space for optimal system and application performance. I recommend maintaining a minimum of 80-100 GB of free space. With only 15 GB of free space you want be able to update or upgrade the system. Most system updates/upgrades require a minimum of 45 GB free space.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

If you're looking for an easy to carry external SSD consider the OWC Envoy Pro Mini. It comes in 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB.

Personally I wouldn't consider any size less than 1 TB.

If budget is a concern consider this setup. It's also easy to carry with the labtop:

Just some food for thought.

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Answer 3

davecw Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 3, 2025 09:51 AM in response to Old Toad

Just as an update the crop feature is now working! It's the strangest thing as older iPhone-shot videos were able to be cropped fine, it was only iPhone videos shot in the last few weeks I was having a problem with. I'm not sure if it was a corruption thing or a metadata problem? In terms of the available hard drive space I don't think that was the problem as I can do far more taxing things with video in apps like DaVinci Resolve and Photoshop without any sort of problems at all.

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Answer 4

Sep 3, 2025 10:40 AM in response to davecw

davecw wrote: …In terms of the available hard drive space I don't think that was the problem as I can do far more taxing things with video in apps like DaVinci Resolve and Photoshop without any sort of problems at all.

It didn't work, remember? Just looking at things that don't seem to yet be corrupted is courting disaster. You need at least 10% of your storage free. Corruption creeps.

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