MOV to MP4 Converter

Why MOV files cause so much trouble

MOV is Apple's QuickTime format. Every iPhone records in it, so does a Mac's screen recorder, and a lot of cameras and editing apps export it too. On Apple gear it just works. Everywhere else, it's hit and miss.

Maybe you've seen some of these. A Windows laptop opens the file and shows sound with a black screen. A school or work portal says the format isn't supported. A smart TV skips the file on a USB stick. WhatsApp Web or a website builder refuses the upload. The video's fine, it's the container and sometimes the codec inside that the other side doesn't like.

MP4 is the format nearly everything accepts. So converting MOV to MP4 is one of those boring jobs people need done a dozen times a year, usually right before a deadline.

What this converter does differently

Here's something most converter sites don't tell you. MOV and MP4 are close cousins. A lot of the time, the video inside a MOV is already H.264 and the audio is already AAC, which is exactly what an MP4 would hold. Nothing needs converting. The streams just need moving into a new box.

That move is called a remux. It takes a few seconds, even for a long clip, and the picture is bit for bit the same as your original. No generation loss, no softening, no new compression artefacts.

The usual online converters re-encode every file anyway. You wait longer, the file often grows or shrinks for no reason, and you lose a bit of quality each time. Some of them have a hidden codec setting called copy, but you have to know to look for it.

This tool checks first. It reads the codecs in your file, and if they can go straight into MP4, that's what happens. Only when the video really can't play as it is does it re-encode to H.264. The progress message tells you which path it took, so you're never guessing.

The two settings

Play anywhere

This is the default and it's what I'd pick nine times out of ten. H.264 video gets copied without touching it. HEVC (H.265), ProRes, and anything else that older devices struggle with gets re-encoded to H.264 at a high quality setting. The result opens on Windows without extra codecs, on Android, on TVs, in Premiere and DaVinci, and on pretty much every site with an upload button.

Keep the original codec

Pick this if your clip is HEVC and you only need the MP4 file type, not a different codec. Maybe an app insists on .mp4 but plays HEVC fine, or you're archiving and don't want anything re-encoded. The HEVC stream is copied and tagged so Apple devices still recognise it. The file stays the same size and keeps every bit of quality.

The catch is playback. Windows needs a paid HEVC extension for some players, and TVs from before about 2016 tend to choke on it. If you're not sure who's going to watch it, stick with Play anywhere.

iPhone HEVC and HDR clips

The same High Efficiency setting saves your photos as HEIC. If a PC or website won't open those either, you can convert HEIC photos to JPG the same way.

Since the iPhone 7, the camera's default setting is High Efficiency, which means HEVC. Since the iPhone 12, video is often recorded in HDR too, using Dolby Vision or HLG. That's great on the phone. It's also the main reason your MOV won't play on a friend's PC.

HDR is where a lot of converters fall down. They squash the 10-bit HDR picture straight into ordinary 8-bit video and the result looks grey and washed out, like someone turned the contrast down. Here, HDR clips get tone mapped first, so the brightness range is fitted into normal video properly. It won't look identical to the phone screen, because a normal video can't show that much brightness. But the colours stay natural and the sky doesn't turn to mush.

Want to avoid the issue for future clips? On the iPhone, go to Settings, Camera, Formats and pick Most Compatible. The phone then records H.264, and every MOV it makes after that will remux through here in seconds. You'll use a bit more storage, that's the trade.

What happens to your video

The file is uploaded over HTTPS, converted on our server with FFmpeg, and the original is deleted as soon as the job finishes, or right away if something fails. The MP4 is kept only long enough for you to download it.

There's no account and no watermark. The recording date carries over, so if you drop the MP4 back into a photo library it lands on the right day instead of today. Rotation carries over too. A portrait clip shot sideways on the phone stays upright, which isn't something you can take for granted with every converter.

Only the main video track and the first audio track are kept. iPhones add extra data tracks for things like timecode and Live Photo metadata, and those cause more problems in other players than they solve.

Getting the best result

Need the MP4 under a size limit for email or Discord? Run it through the Video Compressor afterwards and type the size you need.

A few things I've learned from running a lot of these through:

• Upload the original. If you've already sent the MOV through a messaging app, it's been recompressed. Grab it from the phone or from iCloud instead.
• Long HEVC clips take a while. Re-encoding is real work. A minute of 4K can take a couple of minutes on the server. Remuxing is near instant regardless of length.
• The file size limit is shown on the upload box. iPhone 4K video runs around 350 MB per minute, so a long 4K clip may be over the limit. Record at 1080p if you know you'll be sharing it.
• Re-encoding changes the size. ProRes files shrink a lot as H.264. HEVC usually grows a bit, since H.264 needs more data for the same picture. Remuxed files stay almost exactly the same size.

When you don't need to convert at all

Convert the MOV here first, then the MP4 to MP3 converter will pull out just the sound.

Sometimes the format isn't the real problem. If an email or a chat app rejects the video, it's usually the size, not the MOV extension, and converting won't help much on its own. And if the upload form only wants the voice from a recording, a small audio file beats any video.

And one thing not to do: rename the file. Changing .mov to .mp4 in the file name sometimes appears to work, because some players sniff the content and ignore the name. Others will flatly refuse, or play it with no picture. A proper remux costs a few seconds and gets you a real MP4, so it's not worth the gamble.