Why Can't Play MKV on Mac? MKV, also known as Matroska Multimedia Container, is a free, open source container format that can hold several video audio files in one file at once. It was released in December, 2002 and is widely used across the Internet for video clips, movies, TV shows, etc. However, MKV files are not compatible with Mac device QuickTime natively if you don't install a plugin like Perian, nor does Windows Media Player support MKV if there is no, unless you prefer a as an easy way out. If you want to play MKV on Mac flawlessly, here are 3 recommended solutions for you to play MKV on macoS Mojave/Mac OS High Sierra/Mac OS X (El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks) as well as Windows 10 PC.
All about Tech tips, guides, news, videos and software downloads. MKV is a very popular container format for video files. It supports a lot of video/audio codecs. The Matroska format is popular with various kinds of HD videos, but the drawback is that it is hard to play MKV in QuickTime Player or iTunes on Mac.
5KPlayer is designed to be the new-style MKV player for Mac OS that can help you play MKV on Mac when the default player QuickTime fails to play MKV on Mac. It is associated with MacBook iMac 4K, 5K, 8K, UltraHD videos playback, let alone MKV, AVI, DivX, WMV, FLV, Webm, etc files. It is not only perfectly compatible with Mac OS X/macOS Sierra/macoS Mojave, but also the best free /8/10 if your Windows Media Player can't play MKV. This MKV player Mac could offer you high-quality images and dulcet sounds with the support of multichannel surround sound when you, MKV AVI FLV MP4 3D files, music videos, etc on Mac to have a theater-effect audiovisual experience. Play MKV on Mac by Converting MKV to QuickTime Compatible Formats.
If you persist in playing MKV on Mac with the Mac default media player QuickTime, there is another solution to help you play MKV on Mac at will. That is, converting MKV to other file formats like MP4, MOV, and M4V that QuickTime supports. And MacX video converter is the ideal one that can freely convert MKV to MP4, AVI, MOV, M4V, FLV, etc or vice versa for MKV players, devices like iPhone 7/7 Plus/SE/6s/6s Plus and other applications.
And is no longer a problem. Free download the, install and run it on your computer. Click 'Add File' on the top right corner of the converter to load the MKV file you want to convert. Select the output format you need. To play MKV on Mac, you should convert MKV to QuickTime supported formats including MOV, MP4, M4V, MPEG-1, 3GPP, 3GPP2, AVCHD, AVI, M4A, M4B, M4P, MP3, etc.
Click 'Browse' button to select a destination folder to save the output converted MKV file. Press 'RUN' button to start the MKV converting MKV process. You can freely play MKV on Mac with QuickTime player after the conversion.
Perian is a third party QuickTime component that adds support for a variety of file format including MKV of course. This method is kind of easier than Solution 2 to play MKV on Mac as Perian doesn't require any confriguration.
Once you install Perian, it will automatically start playing your MKV, AVI, DivX, etc files inside the QuickTime Player. However, Perian works only on Mac OS X versions earlier than Yosemite since it is not compatible with QuickTime 10. Advisably, you can install QuickTime 7 Pro on newer Mac OS X (Mavericks/Yosemite/El Capitan) as Perian works flawlessly with QuickTime 7. Too complicated? You can try the to play MKV on Mac in the easiest way.