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Olga Weis
Mar 29, 2023
QuickTime is not a Mac WMA player. So we’ve listed some apps that are. Some players are better equipped for music, some are worse. It depends on the amount of available audio settings, supported formats, interface, and playback quality. Luckily, our reviews for each app include their important aspects. That being said, let’s begin.
What makes Elmedia Player the best way to play .wma on Mac? It simply has the right set of audio listening tools. This is emphasized not only by the abundance of music-centric features, but also its flexible UI.
The customization starts with the built-in audio equalizer and only gets deeper. Elmedia’s EQ has 10 bands across the whole frequency spectrum. It also has pre-sets, so you don’t even need to bother with manual setups - just try one of the available options. And the dazzling audio visualizer also bears mentioning.
Picture-in-Picture is the perfect way to listen while you’re busy with something else, since it keeps the player on top, in a very compact form, and with all the controls still being accessible. Spots in a music track can be bookmarked, and your playlists are exportable to an .m3u file. All these factors make Elmedia a top-notch audio player.
Supported audio formats: MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, WMA, MKA, AIFF, APE, and others.
Supported OS: macOS
Price: free version available, PRO with added features costs $19.95
Mac App Store Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Pros:
Cons:
Open the app and add your music to the playlist:
VLC is a common way of opening WMA files on Mac for obvious reasons - it’s free, safe, and absolutely stuffed with various options. These range from a simple equalizer to full-on interface adjustments.
Once you get used to the player, it becomes easy to do whatever you need with any given music file - to speed it up, add some bass, or visualize it. There are a ton of handy hotkeys and shortcuts, which can also be rebound if you want to.
A user that doesn’t want to invest time into their software won’t benefit from VLC as much, and that’s a shame. Some aspects of the app could definitely use refinement. But that’s a tall order for a team that basically works for free.
Supported audio formats: MP3, AAC, Vorbis, AC3, WMA, FLAC, ALAC, etc.
Supported OS: macOS, Windows, iOS, Android
Price: free
Trustpilot Rating: 2.2 out of 5
Pros:
Cons:
Vidmore focuses on video over audio, and it shows. Nonetheless, it can play WMA on Mac decently well. With its extensive Blu-ray compatibility, it’s definitely much more useful for music DVDs.
If your .wmas are in sufficiently high quality, a point could be made for the usefulness of Vidmore’s surround sound passthrough feature. AC3 and DTS are definitely a must for immersive music or movies.
However, considering its limited feature set, Vidmore Player has an absolutely monstrous cost of $59.95 for a lifetime license. It’s only worth trying if you have a lot of spare cash, and don’t mind spending so much on a multimedia app.
Supported audio formats: ISO, FLAC, OGG, MP3 WMA, MKA, AAC, AIFF, and others.
Supported OS: macOS, Windows
Price: $59.95
G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Pros:
Cons:
5KPlayer is a notable Mac WMA player. It also has a darker side to it. The app offers most features that are found in premium players, and some innovative other ones. There is an EQ and playlist support - welcome additions for music listeners.
However, there are also ads and other suspicious activity. No matter the quality of the app, it would never make up for danger and purposeful inconvenience. Hence, we would not recommend 5KPlayer, and even in situations when only QuickTime is available, you should just wait it out instead of going for this freeware app.
Supported audio formats: MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC, AC3, OGG.
Supported OS: macOS, Windows
Price: freeware
Trustpilot Rating: 3.7 out of 5
Pros:
Cons:
Cisdem is a WMA player for Mac, and a very simple one at that. In regards to audio, outside of just playing it, Cisdem can queue up a playlist, and that’s it. The playback quality doesn’t warrant any complaints, though.
It’s a bit sad to say, but using the full version of Cisdem to convert your .wma songs into .mp3s and playing them in QuickTime is almost better than simply listening to them in the app itself. Just a single addition that would put it above QuickTime - even a visualizer - would make this player a very solid option.
Supported audio formats: WAV, OGG, FLAC, MKA, and others.
Supported OS: macOS, Windows
Price: $9.99
Mac App Store Rating: 4.4 out of 5
Pros:
Cons:
There’s another way to play WMA files on macOS, without the need for a player. Simply converting the .wma into a QuickTime-supported format will make it playable. Although, this process is not worth it for everyday use: re-encoding audio is far slower than direct playback. If you’re looking for a practical solution, try Elmedia Player.
EaseUS lets you convert WMA files Mac. It’s not as bad as web services, since you don’t need to process your tracks one-by-one - it supports batch operations. But if you listen to a lot of music, even batch conversions can add up. Whether this option is worth the trouble is up to you to decide. We’re inclined to say otherwise.
WMA are audio files, and the abbreviation stands for “Windows Media Audio”. As a file type owned by Microsoft, it’s not natively playable on macOS and needs a WMA player for Mac. The compression level for this format is comparable to MP3. In addition to the audio stream, it includes standard metadata, such as track authors and album covers. Overall, there is nothing unusual about the format, outside of its restrictive licensing.
With all this information, you should be able to decide which player to download, or maybe even purchase to play WMA on Mac. The best on the list, by far, is Elmedia Player, though your preferences are also important. In any case, now you know more about macOS multimedia software and its interactions with the WMA format. Good luck with your choice!
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