How to Convert MOV to MP4 on Mac Free with ffmpeg

If you have a video file in MOV format, you may want to convert it to MP4 format. While there are multiple ways to convert MOV to MP4, we will discuss here the method of using the command line and a simple and easy-to-use and free tool ffmpeg.

Why do you want to convert MOV to MP4?

Typically, Mac users may want to convert MOV to MP4 for shared and universal compatibility, as MP4 is a more widely supported video format, especially if you want videos to be compatible in a variety of platforms and video player applications.

Additionally, MP4 files can usually get better compression, thereby reducing file size.

Is it difficult to convert MOV files to MP4 format using ffmpeg?

No. But since ffmpeg is used in the command line, it is slightly more advanced than using a GUI application.

If you are familiar with the command line, the whole process will be familiar and easy for you.

If you are not familiar with the command line but are willing to try it, just follow the instructions and you will be able to convert the file in no time.

How to convert MOV to MP4 using ffmpeg on Mac

First, you need to install Homebrew on your Mac, which makes it easy to download and install command line packages and applications. If you don't have Homebrew yet, install it first.

1. Open Terminal Application

2. In the command line, install ffmpeg using the following brew command: brew install ffmpeg

3. Press Enter to install ffmpeg on your Mac. The installation process will be displayed as follows:

4. After the installation is complete, you can use ffmpeg to start converting the MOV file to MP4 format, using the following command format: ffmpeg -i inputFile.mov OutputFile.mp4

5. Replace inputFile.mov and OutputFile.mp4 with your file and its path. For example, for a file named "ConvertMe.mov" in the user's desktop folder, you can use the following command, which will convert the MOV input file to an MP4 file named "ConvertedFile.mp4" in the same directory: ffmpeg -i ~/Desktop/ConvertMe.mov ~/Desktop/ConvertedFile.mp4

6. After the MOV file conversion is completed, your MP4 video file can be used, shared, streamed, or processed as your plan.

In this way, your MOV video file is now an MP4 video file.

This is probably the easiest, and it is relatively easy and straightforward for people who are not familiar with the command line.

Can I use a different video/audio codec to transcode MOV video to MP4?

ffmpeg is a very powerful tool that allows you to convert and transcode video and its audio using different codecs. You can use the -c flag to specify the codec, as shown in the following example, which specifies the codec for video and audio:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -c:v libx264 -c:a aac output.mp4

The example of the -c flag used here is broken down as follows:

• -c:v libx264 means encoding video using H.264 video codec
• -c:a aac means using an AAC codec to encode audio

ffmpeg supports many codecs, and there may be other useful or helpful options when converting video files from mov to mp4 or any other format.

If you want to know more about ffmpeg, please refer to the ffmpeg documentation here.

How about PCs besides Macs? Can ffmpeg convert MOV to MP4 on Windows PC and Linux?

While we're focusing on Mac here, ffmpeg is not only for MacOS, but also for Linux and Windows WSL, so technically you don't have to follow this guide on your Mac. You can use the same tools to convert .mov to .mp4 on Windows, Linux, MacOS and even on older versions of Mac OS X if you are probably using an outdated system.

If you are using another operating system and using ffmpeg, just skip the Homebrew section and choose the method you like to install based on your operating system. You can download ffmpeg as a pre-built executable, binary, build or package from the ffmpeg.org project homepage.

Forgot ffmpeg and terminal, is there any other way to convert MOV to MP4 on Mac?

If you don't want to deal with the command line and terminal, you can also use the GUI application to convert MOV to MP4, including iMovie, VLC, and various third-party applications and tools.

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What do you think about using ffmpeg to convert mov video files to mp4 format? Are you familiar with ffmpeg? Do you use the command line to perform such file conversion? Do you have other preferred apps or methods to convert MOV to MP4 format on your Mac or elsewhere? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments.

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