Jul 25,2019• Proven solutions
We spent more than 100 hours testing, rating and ranking the best video converter software on the market today. At the end of our analysis, we determined that Wondershare Video Converter is the best application of its kind. It has a wide array of preprogrammed conversion choices, format types and device optimization profiles.
Many people are looking of free Mac video editing software since they have tons of videos and are eager to edit the videos either for better presentation or preservation. Are there any free video editing software for Mac users that are really good? Many people ask this in forums. Here we compare some great Mac video editors, followed by the detailed information of each editor for your reference, and we also made a comparison table for Mac video editor in terms of video format, pros and cons of the 10 best free video editors for Mac. Check it out!
Updates: Are you also looking for video editors for Windows, Linux, mobile phone, or online? Check our latest post 36 Best Video Editors for All the Platforms.
We’ve summarized the features, pros and cons of these best video editing software for Mac users in the comparison table below. You can choose the best suitable one based on your editing skills and needs at the current stage.
Level | Products | Input formats | Output formats | Pros | Cons |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
For beginners | Apple iMovie | DV, HDV, AVCHD, Apple Intermediate Codec, Motion JPEG/A, iFrame, h.264, MP4, MOV... | H.264/MPEG-4, MOV, AVI, DV... | Available on iPhone/iPad; Comptiable well with Apple ecosystem | Audio is copyrighted |
Avidemux | 3GP, ASF, AVI, FLV, H263, JPEG, MKV, MP4, MPEG, MPEG4, MPG, and OGM | AVI, FLV, M1V, M2V, MKV, MP4, MPEG, MPG, OGM and TS | Clean and easy to use interface; Open source software without built-in purchase | Exporting process is slack | |
OpenShot | WebM, AVCHD, HEVC... | MP4, AVI, MPEG... | Provide free built in effects and animations; Support 3D title | Buggy at times; Freeze and crash often | |
ZS4 Video Editor | AVI, WAV, Image Files | AVI, WMV, WAV, Jpg, Png | More than 120 built-in video effects; unlimited tracks | User interface is not friendly | |
HyperEngine-AV | AVI, BMP, Cubic VR, DLS, DV, FLC... | AIFF, AVI, BMP, DV Stream, FLC, MPEG-4... | Includes twelve studio-quality effects; Create slide shows | Discontinued to release new version | |
For semi-pros | Kdenlive | AVI, MP4, FFmpeg... | QuickTime, AVI, WMV, MPEG... | Open source software | Not friendly for greenhands; Update slowly |
Blender | STL, ABC, FBX... | FBX, DAE, ABC... | Fast poly modeling tools; Customizable input | Unintuitive layers system; Animation management is not smooth | |
For pros | Davinci Resolve | MP4, MOV, MTS, AVI... | QuickTime, AVI, R3D, MXF, DPX... | Learning curve is not steep; Offer advance color grading | Single screen editing workflow is not friendly |
Lightworks | MPEG-2, AVC, RED R3D, DPX, Apple Pro Res... | MPEG4/H.264 | Package is lightweight; Only need 3GB RAM to use | Effect library is limited | |
HitFilm Express | H.264, AVCHD, QuickTime, AVI, M2T, M2TS, MTS, MXF | H.264, Apple ProRes, AVI | High level ideo effects compositor | No motion graphics feature |
From the above comparison table, we can see there are so many pros and cons in different aspects. However, you may want to take look at another software - Filmora9- before you decide to use the one you like. It is anexcellnt Mac video editor that can meet your basic and advanced needs.
Wondershare Filmora9 for Mac offers some persuasive advantages over other video editing tools available for Apple Mac. It not only includes basic video editing tools but also provides various advanced video effects for you to apply. Below are some features that can help you understand the best Mac video editor. Download it now to have a try!
Upload media files from your computer or transport from all kinds of cameras, smart phones and elsewhere. Or directly drag-n-drop them to the program.
Easily complete basic video editing by clicking the icons above the timeline. Add different video effects and filters to personalize it. For advanced video editing, you can easily create green screen effects.
Save your video in different formats, share via Vimeo, YouTube, burn to DVD and more.
We’ve done some research and found out the following free video editing software for Mac users. Some of them are for video editing novice, while some free video editing software are for professionals (but if you need to use the professional features, you may need to purchase the Pro version). Hope you can find the right video editor based on your needs from the following list.
iMovie comes with every new Mac (OS X) and you don't need to pay extra money for it. The latest iMovie 11 is a great and free video editor for Mac with many great features such as movie trailer, one step effect, audio editing, etc. And in just a few steps, you can share your movies to YouTube or export videos for your iPhone, iPad, etc. However, iMovie is only free if you buy a new Mac. And when getting started with iMovie, you will find it hard to master this software. All in all, iMovie is one of the best free video editing software for Mac users and receives good reputation. You can learn some iMovie video editing tips and trick at how to use iMovie.
Features:
Pros: Available on iPhone/iPad; Comptiable well with Apple ecosystem
Cons: Audio is copyrighted, so you need to download royalty-free music by yourself
Avidemux is another great free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux and BSD under the GNU GPL license and supports a variety of video, image and audio formats, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4, MOV, ASF, JPG, AAC, AC3, etc. High compatibility with many video formats is the highlight of this free video editing software for Mac. You can also cut ads from a TV recording, or just save a small part of the video.
It also offers some filters to use, such as color correction. You can apply these filters to your video to make it more beautiful.
Features:
Pros: Clean and easy to use interface; Open source software without built-in purchase
Cons: Exporting process is slack, which means it will take longer time
OpenShot is a free, simple to use open-source video editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is a good video editor for beginners to learn and train video editing skills. If you just want to mae some basic editing without having to spend too much time, OpenShot can be one of your best choices.
Apart from doing basic video editing, you can also render 3D animation. This free editor for Mac also supports more than 70 languages. No need to worry about the language barrier to stop you from editing video.
Features:
Pros: Provide free built in effects and animations; Support 3D title
Cons: Buggy at times; It freezes and crashes often
ZS4 Video Editor is a free video editor for Mac which provides media experts with a facility to combine a variety of media types into one (or more) output file(s). Besides Mac, it is also available for Windows and Linux. ZS4 Video Editor comes with over 150 built-in video effects which can help you bring your videos to the next level instantly.
More importanly, you can use it to combine various media files into one, like video, audio and photo. With this all-in-one editor, no more needs to install too many annoying apps.
Features:
Pros: More than 120 built-in video effects; unlimited tracks
Cons: User interface is not friendly
HyperEngine-AV is a free video editing software for Mac used to capture, edit, organize process, and export video, audio, and text to create DVD quality movies and slide shows. It comes with twelve studio-quality effects from Arboretum's Hyperprism suite of audio processors. Besides, it offers text features to display credits, section titles, or karaoke lyrics with fully editable font, size, type, color, style, alignment, and scroll direction. Definitely, HyperEngin-AV is really a good free video editor for Mac users.
Features:
Pros: Includes twelve studio-quality effects; Create slide shows
Cons: It is discontinued to release new version
Although the development team has moved full-stream-ahead on Linux, you can still use this excellent free video editor on Mac with packages available via MacPorts. Kdenlive supports almost all popular media formats, and you can easily add the files to software's multitrack timeline.
You can create 2D titles to light up project like aligning texts and rotating. For editing huge size of video file, it offers proxy to make the editing experience smoother.
Features:
Pros: It is open source software
Cons: Not friendly for greenhands; Update slowly
Like Avidemux, Blender is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. It's a free 3D graphics application and considered as one of the best free video editor for Mac. It can be used for modeling, rigging, texturing, UV unwrapping, skinning, animating, rendering, water and smoke simulations, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications, animated film, video games, or other visual effects. Blender has lots of advanced features like powerful character animation tools, modifier-based modeling tools, a node-based material and compositing system, Python for embedded scripting and so on.
Features:
Pros: Fast poly modeling tools; Customizable input
Cons: Unintuitive layers system; Animation management is not smooth
In our impression, professional-thing costs a lot. But it isn’t true when coming to video editing software like DaVinci Resolve, Lightworks and HitFilm. There are two versions for those video editing software, and the lite version or the free version usually costs no money with limited features which makes them good choice for people who are looking for professional video editing solution to some degree.
Blackmagic Design's Davinci Resolve has been growing from an advanced color-grading tool to an video post-production solution. If you are an experienced video maker and want to apply a high quality color correction/grading to your footage, Davinci Resolve's free basic version can be your choice.
Timeline curve function is a powerful feature for you to add keyframe if you want to edit a specific scene. Also it offers full 3D editing particle systems to let you release creativity.
Features:
Pros: Learning curve is not steep; Offer advance color grading
Cons: Single screen editing workflow is not friendly
Lightworks is a professional video editing software for Windows and Mac, its free version offers you limited export option. It includes video effects, multicam editing, titling, as well as the multi layered timeline approach which is perfect for advanced video editing needs.
Features:
Pros: Package is lightweight; Only need 3GB RAM to use
Cons: Effects library is limited
HitFilm Express is more like a compositing video editor, compared with Adobe After Effects, it's more easy-to-use and friendly to semi-pros. People who are not familiar with the video editing process may find using HitFilm Express difficult.
Features:
Pros: High level ideo effects compositor
Cons: It lacks motion graphics feature
You may have found the best video editor for Mac after reading this article. I’ll try my best to keep the list up to date, but if your favorite free video editor for Mac isn’t listed above, please leave a comment and let me know. This article is for mac version, click here to get more info about free video editing software for Windows.
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I was just wondering what format everyone uses to watch movies on your Macs. Everyone in my dorm is totally stoked on the Divx and Xvid formats but I couldn't seem to get them to run on my girlfriends iBook. Also I was wondering what formats offer the best compression/playback quality? I plan on buying the next revision of PowerBook and using it to rip DVDs and such so I was just wondering what software I will need. Thanks for all the help. - MacRumors
Watching movies, video clips, TV shows, etc are nothing extraordinary for Mac users, whether they are using MacBook Air, iMac or Mac Mini. But embarrassment comes if your video clips are incompatible with Mac computer. So what video formats do Macs play? Longing for the best video format for Mac? For those who want to know the best video format readable on Macs, this article may well suit you.
Until now there are about 100 media types are supported by Mac OS X, covering a range of video, audio, image and streaming formats. The following table specifically lists some common video and audio formats supported by Mac.
Supported Formats | |
---|---|
Mac compatible Audio file and data formats | AAC, AIFF, WAVE, uLaw, AC3, MPEG-3, MPEG-4 (.mp4, .m4a), .snd, .au, .caf, Adaptive multi-rate (.amr) |
Video file formats Supported by Macs | AVI, AVR, DV, M-JPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AAC, OpenDML, 3GPP, 3GPP2, AMC, H.264, HEVC, iTunes (.m4v), QuickTime (.mov, .qt) |
Note: If your files are not in the Mac best video audio formats list, you can resort to a professional video converter for Mac to convert the video to Macbook Air/Pro friendly MP4, MOV, H264, HEVC formats first.
The video and audio formats listed above are fair-weather fan of Mac computer. The net result of this is that it's not just about whether the Mac can play the format or not, it's whether there is any Mac software to support the codec within the file too. In other words, only when the supported video comes with specific codec that Mac supports can your OS X play the file smoothly. The following will list the best video format Mac supports and codecs you will need for a successful playback on your Mac (MacBook/MBP/iMac).
MOV video file uses a proprietary compression algorithm developed by Apple Computer. Mac still remains supreme with the .mov and .mpeg file types. Naturally, MOV is the standard and best video format for Mac. It is known to have the best video quality of all three streaming formats listed here.
MP4 (MPEG 4) is actually a standard that Apple really pushed with Quicktime 6. So, accordingly, you can use .mp4 format just fine on a Mac. Attention shall be paid it's possible that what's going on is that they use the MPEG4 architecture but they're using a weird codec. Between the native QT7 codecs, the Perian ones, and Flip4Mac, you are mostly covered. But MP4 files encoded with MPEG-4 video or H.264 (preferred) video are also considered as one of the best video formats compatible with Mac OS.
Generally, Apple uses M4V encode video files, such as TV episodes, movies, and music videos, in its iTunes Store. The copyright of M4V files may be protected by using Apple's FairPlay DRM copy protection.
Tips: To Unlock protection protection from iTunes M4V videos, you can check the well-known video converter for Mac for help.
Your overwhelming video files are not all created in the best Mac video formats like MOV, MP4 and M4V, then video conversion process from the Mac unsupported videos to the video format that Mac can best recognize seems to be of top priority. Consequently, you will need a professional Mac video converter for help. Don't worry, the world's No.1 fast video converter for Mac is ready for help. It is built in 370+ video and audio codes, thus you can convert any video to the best video formats for your Mac, be it MOV, MP4 or M4V. Thus enjoying the movies, TV shows, online YouTube videos, recorded HD videos, etc on your Macs like MacBook Air, MacBook, MBP, iMac Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, etc can be a cherry pie.
On top of successfully converting 4K HD or SD video to Mac supported video format MP4 MOV etc., this all-inclusive mac video file converter can also aid you to download and convert online video from YouTube, Facebook, Dailymotion, Myspace, Vimeo, Vevo, Instagram, Metacafe and another 1000 video music sharing sites. So if you wanna play YouTube FLV video, Facebook MKV video or Vimeo WebM video on your Macs, you are needless to look around to seek help from others, just this video converter monster can handle all of tough tasks.
And need to remind you that if you still have the demand to compress MP4 video file to smaller file size so as to better storing on your Macs with space saving and no quality loss, just leave this job to this Mac video converter program.