iMovie iOS vertical photo workaround for black on the sides

So frustrated that iMovie won’t allow full frame vertical photos to be used with black on the sides without them being cropped so tightly they are unusable. Completely ridiculous. Here’s a workaround if you have Google Photos.

Assuming you have these photos uploaded to and have the Google Photos app on iPhone or iPad, open GP. Click the “+” in the upper right corner. Then click on “Highlight Video.” Click “Select Photos” at the bottom. Then choose all your vertical photos you want to use in iMovie. Let it create a movie from just those vertical images and save locally to your device. You can now go to stupid iMovie and import this movie file and click the “magnifying glass” when you select the file on the timeline and pinch to zoom out and whalaaa, you have full frame vertical photos. You can obviously slice and dice this file in the timeline to adjust each photo. Good luck and hopefully Apple fixes this someday.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]