Sure, online video usually takes most of the content consumption time for us but there are still plenty of cases where having a great video player for your Mac is important. We did talk about some good Video Players for Windows a couple months ago, it would only be fair that we talk about some of the best free video players for Mac too. So, here is a compiled list of some of the best video players that are available for your MacBook and Mac Pro.
VLC is probably the best for you
VLC is one of the most popular media players for any platform at the moment. Sure, it’s not the best looking and sure, it may not have all the features related to videos on earth. Still, VLC has a very snappy user interface, almost all common features someone may expect, and it plays anything you throw at it.
VLC is one of the best Video Players for Mac
Among all other features, wide format support is one of the strongest suits of this Open Source video player for Mac. Apart from that, gesture support for the touchpad is also excellent and you can customize almost all aspects of the software including skins and keyboard shortcuts.
Its shortcomings include a fairly average media library and its tendency to eat your battery. Still, if all you are looking for is an ad-free, simple yet powerful video player for Mac, VLC should be your pick.
Quick Time Player for best battery life
While not entirely the best video player for mac, sometimes, what is included just works. If you need a media player with best battery optimization possible, Quick Time player is the video player you should be going for.
QuickTime offers the best battery life and comes preinstalled.
Frankly, Quick Time sucks for a wide video format support especially, it can’s play MKV files. Still, if most of your media is Apple ecosystem generated, you should be good to do. It comes preinstalled on all MacBooks and Macs and is one of the few apps that support Apple Airplay.
MPV
In case you did not already know, MPV is the fork of the popular mplayer. Just like VLC, MPV is a free and open source video player that supports hardware decoding and OpenGL video options. MPV also has a very minimal UI only showing you controls when needed and it stays out of your way unless needed.
These features alongside with a wide file format support make MPV is great video player for Mac OS X. If you don’t like VLC for some reason, the free price and good feature set of MPV make it worth looking at.
Pick Kodi if you want a full flagged media center video player
Kodi was previously known as XBMC. The open source application is not only a video player with a wide format support, it also has a UI that makes it one of the best to use on a home theater PC.
Kodi
Kodi is made with a 10 foot UI and if you have your PC in a living room, Kodi makes it really easy to watch video on your Mac from a couch. Alongside being an excellent video player, Kodi proves itself among the best free video players for mac by having impressive library creation and management features. It also supports a large number of online channels and if you have a TV tuner, you can enjoy watching TV on your mac too.
5K Player for High Res video Playback on Mac
5K Player is probably the best video player for your MacBook or Mac if you have a ton of High-resolution videos. While the format support is not as strong as VLC or MPV, 5K Player will still support most common video formats.
While 5K Player is impressive for high-res video playing. What struck me most was its support for watching and downloading video from sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion. 5K Player also supports online radios such as BBC, iHeartRadio and if you want, you can download tracks from sites such as SoundCloud too.
The UI of 5K player is just about average and while it has support for downloading online videos, there are defiantly better apps that come with more control and features for downloading online video.
Also, keep in mind that videos you download from sites like YouTube or Vivo may be copyrighted.
So, which one do you think is the best free video player for Mac?
I prefer VLC about all because it just works. Among the 5 apps, I talked about, which one is your favorite? Is there any other app that I should have listed here? Share with others in the comments below.
