Install 3ivx MPEG-4 codec on your system to view AVI files on Mac. The codec supports all the video files with AVI extension and plays them on QuickTime and other media players on Mac. The 3ivx decoder can also play MOV, MP4, M4A, and 3GP files with MPEG-4 video and MPEG-4 AAC Audio.
How To Play .avi Files On Mac Powerpoint
Apple apps such as QuickTime Player, Photos, and Keynote work with many kinds of audio and video formats. Some apps prefer specific formats, but QuickTime movie files (.mov), most MPEG files (.mp4, .m4v, .m4a, .mp3, .mpg), some AVI and WAV files, and many other formats usually work in most apps without additional software.
Older or specialized media formats might not work in your app, because the format requires software designed to support it. If that happens, your app won't open the file or won't play back its audio or video.
- AVI, Audio Video Interleaved, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft as part of its Video for Windows software. To open AVI files, your player must support all of these codecs. But Mac's built-in video player - QuickTime is unable to recognize and play AVI files.
- Download Free WMV AVI Converter for macOS 10.7 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. This Free WMV AVI Converter helps you convert WMV and AVI video to any popular video file and then to play on your iPhone X/8/SE/7/6/6 plus/5s/5s/5/4s, or iPad Air 2/mini 3/mini 2/4, or iPod touch/nano.
How to search for an app that works with your file
You might already have an app that supports the format of your file. If you don't know which of your installed apps to try, your Mac might be able to suggest one:
- Control-click (or right-click) the file in the Finder.
- From the shortcut menu that opens, choose Open With. You should see a submenu listing all of the other installed apps that your Mac thinks might be able to open the file.
If none of your installed apps can open the file, search the Internet or Mac App Store for apps that can play or convert the file:
- Include the name of the media format in your search. To find the format, select the file and press Command-I to open an Info window. The format might appear after the label Kind, such as ”Kind: Matroska Video File.”
- Include the filename extension in your search. The extension is the letters shown at the end of the file's name, such as .avi,.wmv, or .mkv.
Learn more
- QuickTime Player (version 10.0 and later) in OS X Mavericks through macOS Mojave converts legacy media files that use certain older or third-party compression formats.
- Learn about incompatible media in Final Cut Pro and iMovie.
AVI is a very popular video format which is widely used today. However, many QuickTime users just realized that it's always not easy to play AVI files with QuickTime player, especially when you have upgraded to the latest OS X 10.11 El Capitan. What's the matter? Why can't QuickTime play AVI videos? Just read on to find the reason and 3 possible solutions to solve your problems without any trouble.
An AVI is a free and open source container format. It can hold different types and unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. If you can't play AVI with QuickTime in Mac OS X, it's probably the video or audio codec problem. Frankly, there are a lot of options to help you play an AVI file in the Mac OS X (EI Capitan and Yosemite included), here are some solutions:
Solution 1: Convert AVI in Mac OS X
If you have a lot of AVI files and want to play them on more players like the iPhone, iPad or iPod, you'd better convert the AVI to other formats like the MP4, MOV, M4V or etc. Here, I'll recommend the Video Converter for Mac (EI Capitan and Yosemite compatible), which enables you to convert an AVI to any popular video format for various players, devices and applications. For QuickTime, you can convert the AVI to an MOV file that is associated with QuickTime. See more tips below.
Step 1: Drag the AVI files onto the interface.
Step 2: Choose any format or device you want (most popular format or devices are also supported here).
Step 3: Simply hit Convert at the lower-right corner of its interface.
Solution 2: Play AVI in QuickTime by installing Perian plugin
The QuickTime player is mostly used in Mac OS, if you don't want to use the first solution to convert the AVI files to QuickTime compatible formats, you can try this solution, but no 100% work guarantee.
Perian, is a great open-source QuickTime component that allows playback of different video formats that cannot be played natively on your Mac computer. If you want to use QuickTime as your main video player, you may choose to download Perian because it provides the necessary codecs or components that will allow you to play AVI on Mac. If you have QuickTime 7, you may be glad to discover that it can actually play AVI files without needing any additional plug-ins and codecs.
What you need to know before downloading Perian:
1. The latest version 1.2.3 of Perian doesn't work on Mac OS X Mavericks, let alone Yosemite and Mac 10.11 EI Capitan because Perian requires installation of quicktime 7, which doesn't exist for Mavericks and above. It also doesn't work on Mac OS X Mountain Lion.
2. With a Mac running Mac OS X 10.7, say, Lion, you have to downgrade to the previous version, say 1.2.2. The version of 1.2.3 of Perian does not support QuickTime 10 in Lion and fails to fix the loss of audio after one second in xvid files with ac3.
3. Before installing Perian, you need to remove all QuickTime Components installed on your Mac, like FFusion, Xvid Delegate, 3ivX, DivX, DivX Decoder, XviD, msmpeg4v1, msmpeg4v2, AviImporter, EX_M4S2, Casio AVI Importer, AC3 Codec, and MatroskaQT.
4. For a Mac running Lion or Mountain Lion, converting AVI video to QuickTime is highly recommended.
Solution 3: Play AVI with a AVI player Mac
The VLC media player, is an excellent open-source media player that is known for supporting a wide range of audio and video files. Unlike other media players which have limited format-support, you will be surprised that VLC can play a video or audio file that you didn't even know existed. If your OS is Snow Leopard or higher, installing VLC is definitely a good choice especially if you only plan on watching AVI files on your computer.
Cons of this AVI player (VLC media player):
1. VLC player doesn't play AVI videos with high qualities.
2. VLC player doesn't support EI Capitan.