Have you encountered problems with downloaded videos not playing on Mac or online videos not playing on your Mac browser? Why won’t videos play on my Mac? Many factors can lead to videos won’t be played on Mac. Under most circumstances, this error is attributed to file corruption, unsupported video formats or codecs, relative browser issues, or other possible factors. In the following content, let’s discuss how to fix that. Now, let’s delve into this post.
The first three solutions can help you solve the downloaded or offline videos won’t play on Mac error effectively. The other five solutions are mainly for online videos. Let’s check them one by one.
Solution 1. Check and Repair the Corrupted Videos
When a video is corrupted or damaged, you can’t play it on your Mac. Sometimes, videos can be damaged during the process of downloading, transmission, or converting. When you encounter the videos not playing on Mac error, you’d better check if they are corrupted first. If they are damaged, you need to use a video repair tool to restore corrupted videos.
If you are a Windows user who has the need to repair damaged videos, you can use MiniTool Video Repair. It is a completely free tool that can help you restore corrupted, choppy, unplayable, or distorted videos.
MiniTool Video RepairClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Solution 2. Convert Videos to Mac-Supported Formats
If the file formats of your downloaded videos and offline videos are not natively supported by Mac, you also can’t play them on Mac. In this situation, you need to convert these videos to Mac-supported video formats. What video formats are supported by Mac? They are MP4, M4V, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, and MJPEG. You can try VLC and HandBrake for video conversions.
MiniTool Video Converter is also a good video converter that supports a wide range of formats. You can use it to convert videos to Mac-supported formats. Meanwhile, it supports converting videos for iPad, iPhone, Samsung, Huawei, and other Android devices.
MiniTool Video ConverterClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Solution 3. Try a Multi-format Media Player
For Mac users, QuickTime Player is the default media player to play videos and audio. It doesn’t support playing all video formats. Once your video formats are not supported by QuickTime Player, you can’t play them on Mac. In addition to converting them to supported formats, you can also try other multi-format media players like VLC Media Player, Plex Media Player, Elmedia Player, and more.
Solution 4. Enable JavaScript in the Browser
JavaScript is a programming language and core technology of the web, which is mainly used for designing a vibrant and interactive browsing experience for users. If you have disabled JavaScript in your browser, you may fail to play videos in Safari or Chrome browser on your Mac. To solve the problem that the video won’t play on Mac, you can try to enable JavaScript in your browsers. Here, I just take enabling JavaScript in Safari as an example.
1. Open your Safari browser on your Mac and choose Preferences from the top menu.
2. Click on the Security tab.
3. Tick the Enable JavaScript checkbox.
Solution 5. Clear Brower Cache
When your browser has too much accumulated cache and cookies, it can also make your Mac won’t play videos. In order to troubleshoot the videos not playing on Mac error, you can try to clear your browser cache. Also, you can try to update your browsers to the latest versions. How to clear cache in Safari browser? Go to Preferences, click the Privacy tab, choose Manage Website Data, and then click Remove or Remove All.
Solution 6. Open Videos in a Private Window
You can also open a video in a private window to verify if any browser extensions hinder a smooth playback. How to open a new private window in the Safari browser? Click the File option and choose the New Private Window option from the menu. Then, you can open the link to the video you want to play.
Solution 7. Check and Remove Certain Extensions
Sometimes, some outdated extensions can cause online videos can’t be played on Mac. You need to check all extensions in your browser and remove unknown and outdated extensions. Go to Preferences and click on the Extensions tab to view all extensions. If there are certain unknown or outdated extensions, you can click the Remove button to remove them from your browser.
Solution 8. Update and Restart Your Mac
Generally, the above seven solutions can help you troubleshoot the videos not playing on Mac error. If these solutions do not work, the last solution you can try is updating your macOS. Then, you can restart your Mac and play videos again.
Wrapping Up
Many causes can lead to the video not playing on Mac error. With the above workable solutions, you can easily resolve that error. 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.