Turn a 360° photo into a video for social media

How to convert a 360° photo to video

1. Open the free 360° viewer and load your photo: choose a file, drag it in, paste it, or open it from a link.
2. Press Export video below the viewer.
3. Pick a format: Square 1080×1080 for Instagram feed posts and X, or Landscape 1920×1080 for YouTube, LinkedIn and websites. Both work on TikTok and Reels, which letterbox landscape clips.
4. Pick a length: 5, 8 or 10 seconds. The clip is a single continuous rotation, so it loops cleanly.
5. Press Render video. The viewer draws every frame on your device at 30 frames per second and encodes it as H.264 MP4 at 12 Mbps.
6. Press Download video, then post it. The share step pre-fills a caption with a link back to the interactive 360° view so your audience can look around the full photo.

MP4 export needs Chrome, Edge or Safari, which expose the WebCodecs encoder. Firefox produces a WebM file instead; X and Instagram accept only MP4, so use one of the other browsers if that is where the clip is going.

Why post a video instead of the 360° photo

Facebook is the only major network that still renders uploaded 360° photos interactively, and even there the photo must carry intact metadata. Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn and Threads flatten a panorama into a very wide, very small strip that nobody taps. A short pan video shows the space the way a visitor would see it, autoplays in the feed, and the caption link turns the curiosity into a full interactive view.

The same clip works as a property-listing teaser, a hotel room preview, a construction progress update, or a trailer for a virtual tour on Orbix360.

Tips for a better clip

• Start facing the best view. The pan begins from the direction you are looking when you press Export video; turn to the hero angle first.
• Level the horizon. A photo that was shot tilted wobbles as it rotates. Re-level it in the camera app before exporting.
• Square for feeds, landscape for players. Square uses more of the phone screen in Instagram and X; landscape suits YouTube and embedded players.
• Keep it short. Eight seconds is enough for one full rotation; ten reads slower and more cinematic.
• Add the interactive link. The pre-filled caption points at free360viewer.com/?url=… for photos opened from a link. Photos from your device have no public address, so upload them to Orbix360 first if you want the link.
• Stereo photos export from the left-eye view, which is what a flat video needs.

Output specifications

• Container and codec: MP4 with H.264 (AVC) video, no audio track; WebM (VP9) fallback in Firefox.
• Resolution: 1080×1080 (square) or 1920×1080 (landscape).
• Frame rate 30 fps, bitrate ~12 Mbps: an 8-second clip is roughly 10–12 MB.
• Motion: one full 360° rotation over the clip length, constant speed, seamless loop.
• Processing: everything runs in the browser with WebGL and WebCodecs; the photo and the video never leave your device. A small free360viewer.com watermark sits in the bottom-right corner.

Frequently asked questions

Try it now

Everything above works in the viewer on this site: pick a 360° photo, look around, step into VR, export a video or grab an embed code. Photos never leave your browser.