Add a progress bar to a video

To add a progress bar to a video, draw a bar on every frame that's filled in proportion to how far the video has played, then re-encode it. This tool does that in your browser in four steps:

1. Choose your video (MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV), or try it on the example clip first.
2. Place the bar: along the top or bottom edge, under the apps' top bar, or above their captions and buttons. The preview shades where TikTok, Reels and Shorts put them.
3. Style it: thickness, the bar's and the track's colors, how see-through the track is, rounded or square ends, a glow, one bar or story-style parts, and the time left if you want it.
4. Press Add the progress bar and download the video: same size, same sound, as an MP4 (or a WebM in a browser that can't make MP4s).

A progress bar is a widely used retention technique on short videos, especially ones that ask for a minute or more. The reasoning: people are more willing to keep going when they can see the end coming. A bar shows at a glance that the video is short, or nearly over, so scrolling away feels like giving up on something almost finished. A moving bar also gives the eye something that changes even in a slow stretch.

It won't rescue a weak video. If the first seconds don't give a reason to watch, people leave before the bar matters, and a bar on a long, slow video can just as easily show how much is left to sit through. We don't know of public figures that measure its effect on its own, so test it: post similar videos with and without a bar and compare their retention graphs. Our guide to what a good retention rate is explains what to look at.

The apps lay their own text and buttons over a vertical video, so a bar right at the bottom edge often sits under the caption and the app's own controls. None of the apps publishes exact margins, and they shift between phones and app versions; these are our own measurements, rounded and on the generous side, on a 1080 × 1920 video:

Above the captions puts the bar 420 pixels up from the bottom and inside the left and right margins, so it's clear on all three apps. Under the top bar puts it 240 pixels down. The edges work too where the video is watched full screen without the apps' overlay, or on YouTube in landscape. To check a finished video against each app, use the safe zone checker.

The thickness is set for a 1080-pixel-wide frame and scaled to your video. A white or brand-colored bar on a white track at about 30% opacity reads on almost any footage; a glow helps on bright scenes. For a title or a hook line on the same video, use add text to video.