Can you record dual camera video in square format on iPhone?
No. DualCam composites both camera feeds into one of two portrait canvases as you record — 1080×1920 for a standard 9:16 frame, or 1080×2340 to fill a modern iPhone screen — and neither of those is square. There is no third, square option sitting in a menu somewhere; a square canvas is not one of the shapes the compositor is built to produce.
The reason is the same reason there is no landscape option either: the canvas is a fixed rectangle decided the moment recording starts, and everything downstream — the two layouts that fit a 16:9 camera image into it, the crop each one performs, the position of a picture-in-picture window — is built around that rectangle being taller than it is wide. A square canvas is not a small variation on that; it is a different shape of problem for the same compositing math.
Why the canvas stops at two shapes, not three
Recording two cameras into one frame in real time means the compositor has to know the exact size of that frame before the first pixel is drawn — it is not deciding shape and content separately the way an editor could later. DualCam ships two of those fixed sizes: a plain 9:16 canvas that matches what nearly every vertical platform and template expects, and a taller one that matches the actual screen proportions of a modern iPhone. Both exist because they answer a real difference in what a finished video is for.
A square canvas was never a third option, because it does not match either of those targets — it matches an older Instagram-feed convention, and most of what dual-camera recording is used for (reactions, vlogs, interviews meant to be watched full-screen on a phone) has already moved past that convention.
What happens if you crop a recording down to square yourself
A finished DualCam recording can be cropped to square afterwards in any ordinary editor, the same way any video can. What is worth knowing before you do that is how much of the frame a square crop actually removes. A 1080×1920 recording cropped to a 1080×1080 square loses close to 44% of its height; a 1080×2340 recording loses more than half. That is not empty margin being trimmed away — it is picture. Whatever sits at the top or bottom of the frame when you shot it is what disappears.
This matters more for a dual-camera recording than for an ordinary single-camera one, because the frame is already doing two jobs at once. A picture-in-picture window sitting in a top corner, or the top half of a top-and-bottom split, can end up outside a square crop entirely if the crop is centred on the frame rather than on the subject. A layout that looks correct in the 9:16 or full-screen preview does not automatically survive being squared off later.
Framing for a crop you already know is coming
If a video is definitely headed somewhere that wants a square post, the fix is to plan the crop while you are still choosing a layout, not after. Split top-and-bottom keeps both feeds inside the vertical middle of the frame more reliably than picture-in-picture does, because neither half is pinned to a corner the way a picture-in-picture window is. If picture-in-picture is the layout you want, keeping the small window in one of the corners closer to the frame's vertical centre — rather than tight against the very top or bottom edge — gives a later square crop more room to include it.
- Assume a centred square crop keeps roughly the middle 56% of a 9:16 recording, and less than half of a Full Screen one.
- Split top-and-bottom survives a centred square crop more reliably than picture-in-picture in a top or bottom corner.
- If you are shooting for a square destination, keep both faces — or your face and the subject — close to the vertical centre of the frame, not near the top or bottom edge.
- Crop before you post, not after, and check that the square version still shows what you meant it to show.
Common follow-up questions
Does DualCam offer a square recording option in settings?
No. The two canvas sizes are 1080×1920 (9:16) and 1080×2340 (full screen), both fixed portrait rectangles decided before recording starts. There is no square canvas to select.
Can I get a square video without losing any picture?
Not from a recording that was already composited at 9:16 or Full Screen. DualCam writes one finished frame per moment as you shoot, so a later square crop has to remove real height from that frame — there is no hidden extra picture behind it to reveal instead.
Is the picture-in-picture window itself ever square?
The small inset window can be set to a square shape, but that is the shape of the floating window inside the canvas, not the shape of the overall recording. The canvas around it is still 9:16 or Full Screen either way.
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