Video Player For A Mac



Top Video Player Apps For Mac 1. Cisdem Video Player for Mac. If you are looking for a lightweight player which can play most video formats, then Cisdem video player is a great choice. What makes Cisdem Video Player superior is its capability to play high-quality video formats such as 4K or 1080p. It is also 100% free from any ads or spyware. Cisdem Video Player for Mac If you have been looking for the best alternative option of VLC, then you need to go for the Cisderm because of its smooth working mechanism. It is very flexible by nature and is a backbone to numerous audio and video formats which is why you have no problems in streaming any format.

Devices and Mac OS X version

VLC media player requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. It runs on any 64bit Intel-based Mac. Previous devices are supported by older releases.
Note that the first generation of Intel-based Macs equipped with Core Solo or Core Duo processors is no longer supported. Please use version 2.0.10 linked below.

Web browser plugin for Mac OS X

Support for NPAPI plugins was removed from all modern web browsers, so VLC's plugin is no longer maintained. The last version is 3.0.4 and can be found here. It will not receive any further updates.

Older versions of Mac OS X and VLC media player

We provide older releases for users who wish to deploy our software on legacy releases of Mac OS X. You can find recommendations for the respective operating system version below. Note that support ended for all releases listed below and hence they won't receive any further updates.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Use VLC 2.2.8. Get it here.


Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Video Player For A Mac

Use VLC 2.0.10. Get it for PowerPC or 32bit Intel.


Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Video Player For A Mac

Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later is required

Use VLC 0.9.10. Get it for PowerPC or Intel.


Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

QuickTime 6.5.2 or later is required

Use VLC 0.8.6i. Get it for PowerPC.


Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar

Use VLC 0.8.4a. Get it for PowerPC.


Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah and 10.1 Puma

Use VLC 0.7.0. Get it for PowerPC.

There are a lot of video players for Mac on the market, but you probably only need one. The key to the problem is how to find out which video player is the best for you. Generally speaking, a great Mac video player should play video in any format, build playlists, support STR subtitles, or at least offer crisp visual display. Despite of the fact that the Mac OS X doesn't support as many third-party video players as Windows, the good news is that there are still a few top-qualified free video players for Mac that have everything your are looking for. Here in the following review, we'll list the top 5 video player apps for Mac as well as some useful tips on choosing the best video player for you.

  • See Also:Best Free M4V Players for Mac & Windows

Top 5 Best Mac Video Players

1. VLC Media Player

When talking about the no. 1 video player for Mac, VLC is worth the reputation. It plays just about everything you throw at it, whether it's a file, a stream, or a disc image of a DVD or BluRay. In addition, VLC includes plenty of advanced features, like the ability to stream to devices across a network or transcode video files to other formats. You can fine-tune your playback using video controls, adjust the speed, correct out-of-sync subtitles or audio tracks, take snapshots, and mess around with video effects if you're so inclined. You can also open double windows if you want to actually view the playlist.

2. 5KPlayer

Video Player For A Mac

5KPlayer is a mixture of free (MKV) HD video player, music player, AirPlay media streamer and online video downloader. It's also available for Windows OS, including Windows 10. It can play any movie and music videos smoothly and directly, such as MKV, MTS, AVCHD and other HD videos, and even 4K, 5K videos. The 5KPlayer can also turn your computer to an AirPlay receiver or sender so that you can stream video music from iPhone, iPad to PC or from PC to Apple TV.

3. QuickTime Player

As the default video player on any Mac OS system, QuickTime Player is Apple's flagship best media player. It's lightweighted and easy to use, allowing you view Internet video, HD movie trailers, as well as personal media, and convert the videos. It's the quickest free way to make screen recordings on your Mac, and you can even record iOS devices by connecting your iPhone or similar via Lightning cable.

4. DivX

DivX player for Mac is a powerful movie video player for Mac especially for HD videos playback, such as all native DivX videos, MKV and HEVC up to 4K movies. QuickTime files are included as well. But, this Mac video player seems to eat up too much space with its big installation file. In addition to playing video, the free DivX player also functions as a media server for DLNA-compatible uPnP devices, a media converter, and Chromecast-compatible streaming source. Despite not being a first choice, playback was smooth on even high bitrate 1080p files.

5. UMPlayer

UMPlayer is another free, cross-platform, and open source video player for Mac. It comes with over 270 video and audio codecs for playing. One of the helpful features integrated into UMPlayer is the subtitle search function which allows users to look for subtitles on the fly. Furthermore, the application gives you the possibility to enjoy media provided by the Internet. An integrated search engine lets you quickly look up clips on YouTube. One thing worth mentioning is though UMPlayer still works on modern operating systems like macOS Sierra, UMPlayer hasn't had an update since 2010. So larger files can cause playback issues.

More Useful Tips on Choosing the Best Video Player for Mac

There are some important things you should take into consideration when looking for the best media player for Mac:

VideoVideo Player For A Mac

Video Player For Amazon Fire

First of all, the best free video player for Mac should be free of ads, virus, malware, and spyware. Besides, an user-friendly interface should be a basic feature of the best video player. And it should have strong coding ability to play any video in any format smoothly. Last but not least, the best video player for Mac must be designed with compact video playback function.

That's all. Hope this review saves your time in finding out the best video player for your Mac system. Or maybe you can tell us which one you prefer after testing those free video players in the comments below.

Nick Orin is a review writer, software geek and Mac OS enthusiast. He spends all his free time in searching useful software and gadgets to share with others.