Repeat a video a set number of times

With Number of times, the running time is the count multiplied by one pass: five plays of a 4-second loop make 20 seconds. You don’t need to do the sum yourself, because the estimate line under Export settings shows the length together with the expected file size and pixel size before anything is exported.

• Cut and Blend keep every pass at full length. Blend softens a small jump by mixing a few frames either side of the join, without adding or removing time.
• Crossfade dissolves the end of each pass into the start of the next, so every pass gets shorter by the Crossfade length. Ten passes of an 8-second clip with a half-second crossfade come to roughly 75 seconds rather than 80.
• Exports stop at three hours. A count that would go past that is capped, which only matters for long clips with high counts: 999 passes of a 15-second clip would be over four hours.

If you need a particular running time rather than a particular count, switch to Length instead and the tool works out the passes for you; see make a video longer for short targets and loop a video for an hour for long ones.

Saving a new video file normally means compressing every frame again, and each round of compression loses a little detail. loop.video can skip that step. When the join is Cut, Shape is Original, Size is original, Quality is Standard and the loop starts on a key frame, the original compressed frames are copied straight into the new file for every pass. Nothing is re-encoded, so the picture matches the source exactly and the export is very quick.

What a key frame is

Video files save space by storing a complete picture only now and then. That complete picture is a key frame. The frames after it store just what changed since the previous one, so they cannot be shown on their own. A copied pass therefore has to begin on a key frame, or its first frames would have nothing to build on.

The very first frame of a file is a key frame, so leaving Loop start at the beginning of the clip is the surest way to meet that condition. Further key frames usually turn up every second or two in phone and camera footage, but the spacing varies from file to file.

If any condition is not met, for instance because you chose Crossfade or 720p, the loop is encoded once and those encoded frames are reused for every pass. The quality is still consistent from the first pass to the last, and the sound is always rebuilt for the full length so it stays in step with the picture.

• Twice: a short reaction or punchline that people miss the first time. Playing it twice in the file means nobody has to tap replay.
• Three to five times: a product turning on a stand, a logo sting or a quick demonstration in a slideshow or on a shop display, where the player may not repeat by itself.
• Ten or more: a short movement to study, a waiting-room screen or a clip that has to fill a fixed slot in an event playlist.

For a short section inside a longer video, such as one move in a dance routine, start with loop part of a video, which covers picking the exact frames to repeat.

Under Sound, Original keeps the clip’s audio on every pass, Music swaps it for a track you choose, and Off exports a silent video. Smooth the sound at the join is on by default and blends the last moment of sound into the first, which stops a click at each repeat.

Format can be MP4 (H.264 with AAC sound) or WebM where your browser can encode it. GIF and animated WebP work differently: they hold a single pass of at most 30 seconds and the file itself carries the count, so a GIF set to Number of times ×5 plays five times and then stops. Neither format carries sound, and Safari cannot open animated WebP. For short silent clips see make a looping GIF.