MOV to MP4 converter

1. 1

   Add a MOV

   Drop the file. The tool reads which video and audio it holds and shows what will happen to each.

2. 2

   Choose H.264 if you need it

   An iPhone video recorded in HEVC can stay HEVC, which is fast, or become H.264 for players that can't open HEVC.

3. 3

   Convert and download

   Play the MP4 to check it, then download it.

MOV and MP4 are containers: boxes around the video and audio. An iPhone or a Mac screen recording puts H.264 or HEVC video and AAC audio in the MOV box, and MP4 holds exactly those. So the tracks move into an MP4 box as they are, with nothing decoded or encoded again. The MP4 comes out about the same size as the MOV, with the same picture.

The tool also moves the MP4's index to the front of the file, so it starts playing in a browser or chat app before it has fully downloaded.

iPhones that capture in High Efficiency (Settings > Camera > Formats) record video as HEVC; Most Compatible records H.264. HEVC plays on recent iPhones, Macs and Android phones, and on Windows once Microsoft's HEVC Video Extensions are installed. Older players, some editors and some upload forms only take H.264.

Switch on Convert HEVC to H.264 for those. The video is then encoded frame by frame, which takes longer and makes the file larger than HEVC at the same quality.

The same two paths on the command line:

• Move the tracks without re-encoding: ffmpeg -i input.mov -c copy output.mp4
• Encode the video to H.264: ffmpeg -i input.mov -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a aac output.mp4

No. The MOV is read and the MP4 is written in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Not when the tracks are copied, which is the case for most iPhone videos and screen recordings. Only encoding, such as turning HEVC into H.264, re-compresses the picture, and it's set to high quality.

HEVC is copied as it is unless you switch on Convert HEVC to H.264. Copying is instant and keeps the file small; switch it on only if something can't play HEVC.

The MP4 is built in your browser's memory, so a video of a few gigabytes may not fit. For files that large, use the ffmpeg command in the guide above.

ProRes isn't something MP4 players take, so it has to be encoded to H.264, and most browsers can't decode ProRes. For a ProRes file, use the H.264 ffmpeg command in the guide above.