How to Reverse a Video on iPhone

The honest answer to how to reverse a video on iPhone is that iOS doesn't have a native reverse button. The closest thing is the Bounce effect on a Live Photo. Here's what actually works, and what doesn't.

Reverse a video on iPhone: what iOS actually offers

Neither the Photos app nor iMovie for iOS includes a way to reverse a video clip. That capability exists only in iMovie on Mac. It's worth saying plainly rather than sending you hunting through menus for a button that was never there. A genuine gap, not a setting that's just hard to find.

The Bounce effect on a Live Photo

There is one genuinely native option, but it only applies to Live Photos, and only if the moment was captured as one. Live Photos on iPhone support three effects: Bounce, which replays the captured moment forward and then backward on a loop; Loop, which repeats forward only, with no reversal at all; and Long Exposure, which blurs motion across the frame rather than touching playback direction. Bounce is the one that gets you something resembling a reversed clip. Tap the Live button while editing, choose Bounce, and the result plays the action, then plays it back the other way. From there, tapping the share icon and choosing Save as Video turns it into an actual video file you can save to your camera roll or send elsewhere.

It's not the same as reversing an existing video file. Bounce only works on something captured as a Live Photo in the first place, and it always plays forward-then-backward as a pair rather than giving you a clip that's reversed on its own. But for a Live Photo, it's the closest thing iOS has to a real answer.

Before reversing anything, it's worth checking the audio. A reversed voice track is unintelligible, which is why most reversed clips end up muted or set to music instead of their original sound.

There's no way to turn an ordinary video already in the camera roll into a Live Photo after the fact, either. Live Photo capture has to be turned on in the Camera app before recording, which means the Bounce workaround only ever applies to moments you specifically chose to shoot that way.

Once the clip is right, the boring part is done for you

Montaj doesn't reverse footage, but once your clip is the way you want it, export runs auto-verified, checking duration, dimensions, audio and frame decoding before it hands you the file. That's one less thing to double-check by hand after you've reversed a video on iPhone using the Bounce trick or brought in footage that was already flipped.