Free Video Watermark — Add Text or a Logo to a Video

Worked example

Add a 1920×1080 clip called holiday.mp4. Under the preview the page shows "1920×1080", and "Video engine ready" appears once the engine has loaded. "Text" is selected and the button is greyed out, reading "Type the watermark text". Type "© Studio North" into "Watermark text". The button now reads "Add watermark", and the preview shows the text at the bottom right, because "Bottom right" is the starting position. The starting values are Size 25% (text about 480 pixels wide on this frame), Opacity 70%, Margin 4% (43 pixels from the edges) and Angle 0°. Press "Add watermark". The bar counts "Adding the watermark… 40%", then the page says "Watermark added" with the file size, and the download is named holiday_watermarked.mp4. Now tick "Repeat across the video". The Margin slider disappears, Angle moves to -30°, and the result goes away until you press the button again.

Which settings to use, and the limits

• Choose Text or Logo, then set it up. "Text" and "Logo" choose the mark; one is used per export. For text, type up to 120 characters into "Watermark text". The browser draws it, so any script and font your device has works. Pick a colour swatch (white, black, yellow, red or blue) or "Custom colour", then "Sans" or "Serif". "Bold" and "Outline" start on; Outline adds a dark edge to light text and a light edge to dark text. For a logo, "Choose a logo" takes PNG, JPEG, WebP, SVG or GIF. A transparent PNG, WebP or SVG looks best. A picture that will not open shows "This picture could not be opened. Try a PNG or JPG."
• Place the mark on the nine-square grid. The "Position" grid has nine buttons, from "Top left" to "Bottom right", and "Bottom right" is chosen at first. "Margin" sets the gap to the edges as a share of the frame's shorter side. It runs from 0% to 15% in 1% steps and starts at 4%, which is 43 pixels on a video that is 1080 pixels high. "Angle" tilts the mark from -45° to 45° in 1° steps. The preview over the video redraws whenever you change a control, so you can judge the result before encoding. Margin is hidden while "Repeat across the video" is ticked.
• Set Size and Opacity to suit the footage. "Size" is the width of the mark as a share of the video's width. It runs from 5% to 80% in 1% steps and starts at 25%. For text this is the width of the whole line, so a longer text gets smaller letters at the same Size. A logo keeps its own proportions. "Opacity" runs from 10% to 100% in 5% steps and starts at 70%. A lower opacity hides less of the picture. Keep "Outline" on, or pick a colour that contrasts with the footage, if the text is hard to read.
• Tick "Repeat across the video" to cover the whole frame. Instead of one mark, the mark is copied in rows over the entire picture, with every second row shifted by half a step. Ticking it sets Angle to -30° if it was at 0°, dims the position grid and hides "Margin". Clicking a position square turns the repeat off again. The spacing follows the mark's own size, so use "Size" to decide how many copies fit: a smaller Size gives more of them. Because the pattern covers the whole frame, cropping an edge does not remove it.
• Pick a Quality level for the file size. "High", "Balanced" and "Small file" encode H.264 at constant-quality (CRF) values of 19, 23 and 28. A lower number means better quality and a bigger file, and "Balanced" is the default. The result is always an .mp4 named after your file with _watermarked added, and the whole picture is re-encoded, not only the part under the mark. Odd sizes are trimmed to even numbers. Audio from .mp4, .m4v and .mov files is copied unchanged. Audio from other containers, such as WebM or MKV, is re-encoded as AAC at 128 kbps. A phone, or a video longer than 90 seconds, uses the quicker "veryfast" encoder preset.
• Change a setting to make a new version. A finished video is shown only while the controls still match it. Change the text, logo, position, a slider or the quality, and the player and the download button disappear and "Add watermark" comes back. Press "Cancel" under the progress bar to stop a run. The page then shows "Processing cancelled." and keeps nothing. When a result is ready, a "Do more with this file" row offers "Compress", "Trim", "Add captions" and "Make a GIF" for the new MP4. Your video is processed in the browser and is not uploaded.

Common problems and how to fix them

The main button is greyed out and reads "Type the watermark text".

In Text mode the button needs at least one character that is not a space in "Watermark text". In Logo mode it reads "Choose a logo first" until a picture has opened. The button is also greyed until the browser has read the video's size, which appears under the preview as, for example, 1920×1080. If that size never appears, see the next fix.

It says "This browser cannot preview this video, but it may still convert. Try it, or convert the video to MP4 first."

The browser's own player raised an error for the file, which can happen with a codec the browser cannot play. The tool takes the video's width and height from that player. If the size never appears under the preview, "Add watermark" stays greyed out and the file cannot be run. Convert it to a standard H.264 MP4 first, for example in the Video Converter, and add the new file. If the player finds no picture at all, you see "This file has no video picture that the browser can show."

It says "This video is 2.3 GB; the most this device can handle here is 2 GB. Trim or compress it first."

The page checks the size when you add the file and refuses anything above a limit that depends on the device: 2 GB on a normal computer, 1 GB on a computer that reports 4 GB of memory or less, and 400 MB on a phone. The whole video is copied into the encoder's memory. Cut the clip shorter in the Video Trimmer, or shrink it in the Video Compressor, then come back. A clip under the limit can still run out of memory.

It says "This video is in AV1 format, which the in-browser video engine can't decode. Save or download it as MP4 (H.264), then add it again."

To burn the mark in, the engine must decode every frame. Its only AV1 decoder is a hardware one, which does not work inside the browser, so the error appears when you press "Add watermark", not when you add the file. The preview comes from the browser's own player, which is a separate decoder, so the clip can look fine there. Convert it to H.264, for example in the Video Converter, or get an H.264 version from wherever you saved it, then add it again.

It says "The browser ran out of memory processing this file — it is too large for this device. Try a shorter clip, a smaller file, or a desktop computer."

The tool copies the whole video into the encoder's memory and builds the new MP4 beside it, so both must fit at once. There is no warning before the run. The message appears when the engine reports that it ran out of memory. The next press starts a fresh engine, which loads from the browser's cache without a new download. Trim the clip first or use a computer. A phone already refuses files above 400 MB.

How it compares

This tool burns one text or logo mark into every frame of the video and saves an MP4. The mark sits at one of nine places or repeats across the frame, with size, opacity, margin and angle set by sliders. It stays the same for the whole video: it cannot appear only between two times, move, fade, be dragged to any spot, or carry text and a logo together. The picture is always re-encoded as H.264, so the file is not the original with an overlay, and the output is always an MP4. A video editor on your computer can do timed, animated and layered marks and can handle files above the browser limit. In exchange nothing needs installing, and the video stays in your browser.