Free browser tool
Make a MOV play everywhere
Drop a QuickTime MOV in and get an MP4 back, usually in about a second. It converts in this tab, on your own machine.
- No sign up
- Nothing uploaded
- No queue
- Up to 300 MB a file
Drop a MOV in
Drag a file onto this panel or open one. It is converted to MP4 in this tab, on your own machine, and never uploaded.
Most MOV files do not need converting
They need rewrapping. QuickTime's container and MP4 can both hold H.264 video and AAC audio, which is what a Mac screen recording and most iPhone videos already are. So the streams are copied from one box into the other, byte for byte, and the whole thing takes about a second with nothing lost and nothing re-compressed.
When that is not possible, the page re-encodes instead. A ProRes master from an editor, or HEVC from a recent iPhone, cannot go into an MP4 as it stands, so every frame is decoded and encoded again as H.264 at CRF 23. That takes real time and makes the file considerably smaller.
Both paths are tried in that order, automatically. You see which one ran on the panel when it finishes.
Why anybody needs this
Windows stopped shipping QuickTime in 2016, Android never had it, and plenty of web apps reject .mov on sight. MP4 is the one video file you can send to anyone without a conversation about which player they have.
Nothing is uploaded
The conversion is ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly, running in this tab on your own processor. Your recording does not leave your machine, which matters when it is an internal system, a customer's screen or an unreleased product.
Recording to MP4 in the first place
QuickTime's own screen recorder writes MOV, which is why this page exists. Prequel records your Mac's screen straight to MP4, H.264 or HEVC, at up to 4K and 120 fps, and opens an editor on the take with the zooms already placed.
How it works
Converting in 3 steps
- Drop the MOV inA Mac screen recording, an iPhone video, a QuickTime export. Up to 300 MB.
- ConvertThe streams are copied into an MP4 container when they can be, which takes a second and loses nothing. Anything else is re-encoded as H.264.
- DownloadThe MP4 plays on Windows, Android, every browser and every editor, which the MOV often would not.
What it does
Free, and still worth using
Finish in a second, not a minute
A Mac screen recording is already H.264 and AAC inside a QuickTime wrapper, which is the inside of an MP4. The streams are copied across rather than decoded and re-encoded, so nothing is lost and nothing is re-compressed.
Keep the quality you recorded
A rewrap is byte for byte the same video and the same audio. Where the codecs do not fit in MP4, the fallback is H.264 at CRF 23, which is the quality setting people use for delivery.
Send it to somebody on Windows
MOV is QuickTime's container and Windows has not shipped QuickTime since 2016. MP4 is the one video file you can send anybody without a conversation about players.
Convert without an upload
ffmpeg runs in this tab, so a recording of an internal system or a client call is converted on your own machine and never leaves it.
On a Mac, the editing is already done
Prequel records your screen at its full resolution, then opens an editor with the zooms already placed, your camera framed and a background applied. Export one MP4 at up to 4K.
No credit card required
- Zooms placed on every click
- Camera shaped, sized and framed
- Background, padding and shadow
- Microphone and system on separate gains
- Cursor smoothed and resized
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An MP4 in, the audio out as an MP3, converted in the tab.
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A QuickTime recording in, its audio out as an MP3.
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FAQ
Speed, quality and players
Why was that so fast?
Because most MOV files do not need converting, only rewrapping. QuickTime and MP4 can hold the same H.264 video and AAC audio, so the streams are copied into the new container untouched. That is a file copy rather than an encode, and it is lossless.
Does converting MOV to MP4 lose quality?
Not when it rewraps, which is most of the time: the picture and the sound are the same bytes in a different box. When the MOV holds something MP4 cannot carry, such as ProRes from a camera or a professional editor, it is re-encoded to H.264 and the page takes a little longer.
Why is my MOV so large?
Screen recordings and camera files are often recorded at a high bitrate to stay editable, and a ProRes export is enormous by design. Rewrapping keeps the size the same; re-encoding to H.264 is what makes it smaller, and that happens automatically when the streams will not fit.
Will the MP4 play on Windows?
Yes. H.264 in an MP4 plays in Windows Media Player, on Android, in every browser and in every editor. That is usually the reason somebody is on this page.
Is my video uploaded?
No. The conversion runs inside this tab using ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly. Your MOV is never sent anywhere, which is not true of most converters at the top of this search.
Can I convert an iPhone video?
Yes. An iPhone writes H.264 or HEVC in a MOV. H.264 rewraps instantly; HEVC is re-encoded to H.264, which takes longer and makes the file play in more places.
What is the size limit?
About 300 MB, because the file, the output and the encoder share the tab's memory. A rewrap of a larger file would work in principle, but the ceiling is set where a re-encode stops being safe.
Can I skip this step next time?
Yes. Prequel records your Mac's screen straight to MP4 with H.264 or HEVC, so what you export is already the file you were going to convert it to.