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
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:
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.
