A few weeks ago, I encountered a WMA playback failure on my Mac. Then I collected information from the Internet and found effective ways to play WMA on Mac. Does Mac support playing WMA files by default? Can QuickTime Player open WMA files? No, you can’t play WMA on Mac.
WMA, developed by Microsoft, is short for Windows Media Audio which is an audio coding format. It is natively supported by Windows computers. However, WMA is not natively supported by Mac and QuickTime Player. To play WMA on a Mac, you can try to use a third-party WMA player to play WMA files. Alternatively, you can convert WMA to a format supported by your Mac for playback. Below is a detailed tutorial for your reference.
Method 1. Play WMA Files on Mac via WMA Player
How to play WMA files on Mac? Though you can’t play WMA files with QuickTime Player, you can use other third-party WMA players for Mac. VLC Media Player, Elmedia Player, Cisdem Video Player, and 5Kplayer are excellent WMA players for Mac. Here, I only take VLC Media Player as an example to show you how to play WMA on Mac.
Step 1. Go to the official website of VLC to download VLC and then install it on your Mac.
Step 2. Launch VLC, click the Media tab and choose the Open File option.
Step 3. Next, choose the WMA file you want to play and hit the Open button. Then you can enjoy the WMA file on Mac.
Method 2. Play WMA Files on Mac by Converting WMA for Mac
Another useful way to play WMA on Mac is converting WMA to a Mac-supported format. What audio formats are supported by Mac natively? These audio formats are MP3, AAC, M4A, AIFF, WAV, ALAC, FLAC, and OGG. You can use the following 2 audio converters to convert WMA files for Mac.
Option 1. Using MiniTool Video Converter
MiniTool Video Converter is a completely free file converter that supports converting to and from a wide range of audio and video formats, such as MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, M4A, M4V, MOV, and more. You can use it to convert WMA to MP3, AAC, or other formats supported by Mac. Furthermore, its batch conversion feature enables you to convert up to 5 files at the same time.
In addition, MiniTool Video Converter enables you to convert videos for iPad, iPhone, Samsung, and other Android devices. With it, you can easily solve the playback problem caused by incompatible formats or codecs. Follow the steps below to convert WMA for Mac using MiniTool Video Converter.
Step 1. Download, install, and launch MiniTool Video Converter.
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Step 2. Click on Add Files or the Add or Drag files here to start conversion area to import the WMA files you need to convert.
Step 3. Open the output format window by clicking on Convert all file to. Then switch to the Audio tab, choose a Mac-supported format (like MP3 or AAC) from the right sidebar, and select a needed preset quality from the right panel.
Step 4. To customize the saving path, you can expand the Output list at the bottom left. Once everything is prepared, click on Convert All to activate all conversion processes. When the conversion process is over, switch from the Converting subtab to the Converted subtab and hit on Show in folder to locate the converted file.
Option 2. Using iTunes
iTunes is a versatile program developed by Apple and it is available on both Windows and Mac. You can use it to convert WMA to AAC or MP3. Pay attention that iTunes can only convert WMA files without DRM protection. Below is how:
Step 1. Run iTunes, click File, and choose Add File to Library to import the target WMA file into iTunes.
Step 2. Hit Edit, choose Preferences, and click the Import Settings button. Expand the Import Using dropdown and choose from MP3 Encoder or AAC Encoder. Then click on OK.
Step 3. Highlight the newly added WMA file, hit File again, move to Convert, and choose Create MP3 Version or Create AAC Version based on your chosen format in the last step.
Conclusion
WMA is not natively supported by Mac. You can’t directly play WMA files on Mac. Fortunately, you can use VLC Media Player, Elmedia Player, and other WMA players for Mac. Meanwhile, you can play WMA on Mac by converting WMA to a format supported by Mac. Hopefully, this post will be helpful to you.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Olivia is always full of enthusiasm for life and loves to record. She often records beautiful and memorable moments of life with her camera and then uses some editing tools to put the photos, videos and audio together. She also has a passion for writing and offers suggestions to readers on images, audio, videos and news. To provide more professional articles and solve problems for readers, she is continuing to learn multimedia as well.