How to Play AVI Files on Mac OS X?

"I have a mac and I have lots of AVI files but sometimes when I open one of the files it says that I need to download something in Quicktime components but I don't know what to download! And please, how to play AVI files on Mac?"

The main reason is that AVI is a container format that contains several different video compressor including DivX, XviD, 3ivx and Indeo. In most cases, AVI movies use DivX, a compressor that offers high video quality and small file size. To play these AVI files with QuickTime, you need to download and install the free DivX codec.

Sometimes, the AVI file may not be a DivX files. In this situation, I would recommend you to try other media players like MPlayer OS X or VLC Media Player. Both of them are excellent and free multimedia players that can deal with many of the video formats unknown to QuickTime. You can check this page: AVI Player for Mac.

If you are looking for a much easier way for playing AVI files on Mac with QuickTime, you can simply convert AVI to QuickTime on Mac with a third-part AVI Converter. My favorite is Wondershare Mac Video Converter. I have converted every type of AVI file to the format I need including QuickTime with great results. It also enables you to edit your AVI files like trim clips, crop frame size, add effects to it.

Following is how to play AVI files on Mac with a third-part converter. Please download the program and install it first.

* Intel Version

* Power PC Version

Guide: How to Convert and Play AVI on Mac

Step 1: Load video files
Click File -> Add Video Files to browse your computer hard drive and select the AVI files you want to convert.

Step 2: Select output format
Click image button from each video item, set output file name and choose output format from "Format > Video Formats" list, you can select "MOV-QuickTime (*mov)" as output format. Then choose a proper destination folder for saving output files.

select a proper output format to convert and play avi files on mac

Step 3: Start Conversion
After done all above operations, you can then click the "Start" button start AVI video file conversion.

Within several minutes, the converted AVI files are ready for your Mac Player. Now you can easily play AVI files on Mac with Quicktime or iTunes. Free download to have a try for enjoying AVI videos files on Mac freely now.

* Intel Version

* Power PC Version