Live
Compress Video
Make a big video smaller
MOV → MP4
LiveTurn a MOV from an iPhone, a Mac or a camera into an MP4 that Windows, Android, TVs and editing software all open. Most MOV files are already carrying the video MP4 uses, so we move it across without re-encoding it and the quality is untouched.
What it does
- Copies the picture and sound across untouched when ordinary players can open them
- Re-encodes only what ordinary players cannot open, and says which one happened
- The result starts playing before it has finished downloading
Your files
Gone within the hour.
Files are uploaded over HTTPS, used only to run this tool, and deleted from our server automatically about an hour later. Never sold, never used to train anything.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a MOV to MP4?
Drop the MOV in above and press Convert to MP4. The file is converted on our server and comes back as a download, usually within a second or two for a video that only needs its container changed. There is no account, no watermark and nothing to install.
Does converting MOV to MP4 lose quality?
Usually not at all, and this is the part most converters are vague about. MOV and MP4 are containers: boxes around the same encoded video. A MOV from an iPhone, a Mac screen recording or most cameras already holds H.264 or HEVC video with AAC sound, all of which MP4 carries natively, so the streams are copied into the new box without being decoded and the picture is identical, byte for byte. Only a video in a format ordinary players cannot open, ProRes from an editing program being the common one, has to be encoded again as H.264. The result screen tells you which of the two happened rather than leaving you to guess.
Why is my MP4 almost exactly the same size as my MOV?
Because nothing was re-compressed. When the video is copied across, the only difference between the two files is the container around it and a small amount of bookkeeping, so a few kilobytes in either direction is normal and correct. A large drop in size means the opposite: the video had to be re-encoded. A 7.4 MB ProRes clip becomes a 129 KB MP4 on the standard setting, because ProRes is barely compressed to begin with.
How large and how long can the video be?
One video per job, up to 50 MB, and up to 20 minutes of running time. The finished MP4 also has to come in under 500 MB, which only a re-encode of unusually large input would ever approach. MOV, MP4, M4V, WebM, MKV, AVI, MPEG, OGV, FLV and transport stream files are all accepted, so this works as a general converter even though MOV is the common case.
Will the MP4 play on Windows, Android and in editing software?
That is what the tool is for, and it is why we do not simply repackage anything ffmpeg accepts. A video can be placed inside an MP4 and still refuse to open on a TV or in an older Windows player, so formats outside a deliberately narrow list are re-encoded to H.264 at 8-bit 4:2:0, which is the combination players actually support. Video shot on a recent iPhone is the one exception we make: it is copied across as it is, with the tag Apple devices expect, because re-encoding it would throw away the extra colour information it was recorded with.
What happens to my video after the conversion?
It is uploaded over HTTPS, used only for this one job, and deleted from our server automatically about an hour later, along with the MP4 you download. The MP4 also carries none of the container tags the original had: the device name, the software that recorded it and any location stored beside the video are left behind rather than travelling with the copy you share.