MOV to MP4

How to use MOV to MP4

1. 1

   Add the MOV video from your iPhone or Mac.

2. 2

   Click Convert to MP4.

3. 3

   The video is re-encoded to H.264 MP4 in your browser.

4. 4

   Download the MP4 file.

Why your iPhone video will not play on Windows or Android

MOV is Apple's QuickTime container. Every iPhone, iPad and Mac records into it, and every Apple device plays it back perfectly — which is why the problem only surfaces when the file leaves that world. Windows Media Player, many Android phones, older smart TVs, PowerPoint on a PC, learning platforms and a surprising number of web upload forms either refuse a .mov or play it without sound. "Convert mov to mp4" is the search that follows.

MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio is the format that everything plays: Windows, Android, browsers, TVs, editing suites and social networks. Converting a MOV to it does not change the picture you shot; it re-packages the clip so the awkward device stops complaining.

What the conversion does to the video

The clip is re-encoded to H.264 at a quality-based setting (CRF 23, the widely used default) with the pixel format every player understands, and its audio to 160 kbps AAC. The MP4 is written with its index at the front so it starts playing while still loading when uploaded to a website or shared in a chat. Resolution, frame rate and duration stay exactly as recorded — a 4K 60 fps clip comes out as a 4K 60 fps MP4.

Newer iPhones record HEVC (H.265) by default, which is precisely the codec Windows and older Android struggle with. The conversion decodes it and produces H.264, so the compatibility problem disappears. Expect the MP4 to be roughly similar in size to the MOV for HEVC sources, and smaller than MOVs recorded in the older H.264 setting.

• iPhone clip to a Windows colleague → MP4 plays in every player
• Screen recording from a Mac for a slide deck or LMS → MP4 required
• Video for Instagram, YouTube or a website form → MP4 is the safe upload
• Footage for Premiere, DaVinci or CapCut on PC → H.264 MP4 imports cleanly

How long it takes, and what affects it

The work happens on your own CPU, so conversion time scales with the clip: a one-minute 1080p video takes roughly a minute on a recent laptop, sometimes less; 4K takes longer and phones are slower than desktops. A progress bar shows where the encoder is. The first conversion also downloads the ~31 MB video engine once, which your browser then caches.

If a very large file is the real problem — a ten-minute 4K MOV of several gigabytes — trimming or compressing first is faster than converting the whole thing. Otherwise the practical rule is: leave the tab open and in the foreground; browsers throttle background tabs, which slows encoding noticeably.

Your videos never go to a server

Every step runs inside your browser, using the WebAssembly and Canvas APIs your device already ships with. No file is uploaded, no copy is kept, and nothing sits in a queue on a server waiting to be deleted — which is also why the tool keeps working with the network disconnected.

Videos are the files people are least comfortable uploading — family footage, a screen recording with a password visible, an unreleased product demo — and the files most "free MOV to MP4" sites keep on their servers the longest. Here ffmpeg runs as WebAssembly inside your tab: the MOV is read from disk, encoded in memory and the MP4 written to your downloads. There is nothing to upload to.

There is also no daily limit, no queue and no watermark, because there is no server bill to recover. The only ceiling is your device's memory, and a typical phone clip is nowhere near it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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