Without a doubt, MP4 is one of the best formats available for videos right now. It doesn’t take much space, maintains both the audio quality and the video one, and is widely adopted and supported. Unfortunately enough for Mac users, the default player, QuickTime, does not support the format and will probably never will. To take full advantage of this format, you will also need a reliable and robust MP4 player for mac. This is where Elmedia comes into play. This powerful and lightweight app will not only give you the answer for how to play MP4 on Mac but also stream them, take control of the playback settings, download videos, and more.
Installing Elmedia on your Mac delivers a universal tool to solve QuickTime’s issues in playing certain MP4 files. This versatile video player for Mac gives you the highest playback standards and a wide range of settings to get the best viewing experience ever. You won’t ever have to deal with the situation in which MP4 won’t play on Mac, no matter if you are playing a 1080p, 4K or 8K video. Elmedia Player guarantees a smooth playback with no issues whatsoever.
Besides MP4, Elmedia Player supports a wide range of formats without needing any additional codecs. Thanks to the numerous playback enhancement tools, all your videos will play smoothly and without buffering. Being able to adjust the playback speed, deinterlace videos, play videos in the loop, and the built-in video tuner are just a few of the perks you get with Elmedia. The range of formats includes MP4, SWF, FLV, AVI, WMV, MOV, DAT, MP3, FLAC, M4V, MPG, and even Blu-ray, as well as many more.
1. Download and install the app and run it on your Mac.
2. Add the MP4 files to Elmedia’s library to be able to play them. There are various ways to open MP4 on Mac using Elmedia Player:
3. Enjoy watching your favorite videos!
System Requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.9 or later
- 64-bit processor
- 55.3 MB of available disk space
Using Elmedia Player PRO, the paid version of Elmedia Player, you will unlock even more features that will turn watching MP4 on Mac into an amazing experience.
| Download | Stream | Manage subtitles | Adjust video and sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| MP4 is one of the most popular formats for YouTube downloads. Get all your MP4 files in just one click. | Delivers both streaming and receiving functionality. | Integrated subtitles search via opensubtitles.org. | Deinterlacing to get rid of annoying horizontal stripes. |
| Get the soundtrack from videos. | Streams MP4 and many other formats to Apple TV, Chromecast or Smart TV. | Customization of appearance (font, size, color, encoding). | Progressive video tuner delivering fine adjustment of color parameters. |
| Streams video and audio files in the original format. Files incompatible with your smart TV are converted on the go. | Synchronization adjustment. | Full-screen playback to multiple monitors connected to the computer. | |
| Streams videos from YouTube, Vimeo or Dailymotion without ads with the player's Open Online Video feature. | Endless loop for any video segment. |
Even though with all the functions it provides, there’s no doubt that Elmedia Player PRO is the best answer to how to open MP4 on Mac, we’re giving you other suggestions as well. We want our readers to have all the information possible.
If you don’t want to go with another media player other than the built-in QuickTime, the solution is to convert MP4 files into formats that the player will easily recognize and play. Here are some apps that answer how to watch MP4 on Mac by converting the file format:
An MP4 file, or the .mp4 format, is a multimedia container created to store audiovisual data. It was created by the Moving Picture Experts Group (abbreviated MPEG), and it’s one of the most popular video formats out there. It can handle digital video and audio streams, as well as subtitles and images. Being capable of Internet streaming is yet another advantage you get from using an MP4 file.
An MP4 file, or the .mp4 format, is a multimedia container created to store audiovisual data. It was created by the Moving Picture Experts Group (abbreviated MPEG), and it’s one of the most popular video formats out there. It can handle digital video and audio streams, as well as subtitles and images. Being capable of Internet streaming is yet another advantage you get from using an MP4 file.
The MP4 comes with various filename extensions that can indicate the content of a file. This generated some confusion among users regarding what MP4 is and how this format is organized. Furthermore, some MP4 files are also encrypted through FairPlay Digital Right Management, the technology used by Apple to protect content from illegal duplication.
Now that you have the answer for how to view MP4 on Mac, let’s check out the most common file extensions for the container:
Frequently asked questions:
Usually, Macs should be able to play .mp4 files natively. Double-clicking on the MP4 and opening it in the default application is the most straightforward way to do it. However, sometimes QuickTime fails to play MP4 files correctly due to various video or audio codecs that are usually included in an MP4 container. In situations like these, you need a reliable MP4 video player to do the job, like Elmedia Player.
According to the Apple Support Website, QuickTime is capable of supporting MPEG-4 (.mp4, .m4v, .mp3, .mpg). However, since MP4 is a highly complex video container with many other codecs for audio and video, QuickTime will sometimes have issues with the playback.
To easily get around this hiccup, you have various other video players at hand. Elmedia Player is a great choice for playing any type of .mp4 file on your Mac. Using it, you will be able to easily and efficiently play any MP4 in a few clicks.
Alternatively, you can convert MP4 video to another format that is compatible with QuickTime. MOV is a good example of such format and we’ve given you some apps to easily convert MP4 files in this article.
Sometimes, MP4 files can easily be opened on Mac devices using the QuickTime Player, while on some other occasions, they may not work at all. And this is why. MP4 does not have one particular file extension, but instead, several different ones, based on the files that are encoded within. As such, QuickTime does support .mp4 and .m4v, but it may have some trouble when attempting to run other types of extensions behind the MPEG-4 format. This is why we strongly recommend purchasing a third-party application able to run absolutely all MP4 files without any errors whatsoever.
MPEG-4, MP4 and MOV are all using the exact same compression system, which makes them quite similar. Even more so, given the fact that MP4 was developed through the MOV framework. Nevertheless, there are some key differences between these two formats.
In general, MP4 is much better perceived than MOV, mostly due to its vast compatibility with a wide range of platforms, as well as its tagging options. As such, MP4 appears as far more versatile and flexible than MOB, even though in terms of quality, the differences between the two are indistinguishable.
