How to Fix Corrupted Video Files on Mac

Is your video unplayable on any media player (and even the device used to capture it)? Signs point to corruption — and If you don’t have a copy of the footage, you’re on the brink of losing it permanently. But we can help.

With the assistance of our tech team, we carefully analyzed how video corruption manifests and reverse-engineered it to figure out what happened to the video’s data… And most importantly, how to fix it using a Mac machine.

Here are 5 proven ways to repair corrupted videos on Mac using free and (mostly) open-source tools!

Top 5 Methods to Repair Corrupted Videos on Mac

Before you attempt any of the fixes we mentioned above, make sure that your video is actually the problem. In some cases, it’s your media player simply failing to recognize the file. Also, make sure that you saved a copy of the file on your Mac (locally) and are trying to open it from there – not from an external device like a USB stick. And use VLC Media Player, which is a free and open-source media app with superior compatibility.

Method 1: Use Online Video Repair Service

There are websites that host real-time file repair services where you can simply upload your file to be repaired directly inside your browser (with no human technicians involved).

To follow along with our guide, recommend using a site called Clever Online Video Repair. It’s free for files up to 5 GB in size (compared to 500 MB on other sites) and it’s compatible with almost all popular video file signatures. That includes MP4, which we’ll be using as an example, as well as MOV, DAT, GIFV, M4A, QT, DAT, 3GP, and many more.

It can also repair videos with a missing Moov Atom, which is a common cause of corruption (the Moov Atom is written last so it doesn’t get written in case of a drone crash or sudden camera shutdown, for example).

1. Open any browser on your Mac (we recommend Google Chrome or Safari). Then, navigate to the Clever Online Video Repair’s webpage.
2. Click the yellow Choose file button.
3. In the dialogue box that appears, locate and select your corrupted video file. Then, click Upload.
4. A new dialogue box will appear. In the text field, describe the events leading up to and immediately after the corruption of your video file. Then, click Send. You can also click Skip and repair if you don’t recall.
5. In the next dialogue box, utilize the dropdown menus to select the brand and model of the device you used to capture the corrupted video. Then, click Repair. It really helps if you can remember these details accurately, but you can click Unknown device if you don’t (an attempt will still be made).
6. Once your file has been successfully uploaded, another Choose file button will become available. Click it.
7. You’ll be greeted by the same dialogue box that appeared in step 3. This time, select the healthy video sample we mentioned in the beginning and click Upload.
8. Once the sample file has been uploaded, Clever Online Video Repair will prompt you to log in or register with your email address and password. Once you’re logged in, the repair process will start – if successful, you’ll be able to preview screenshots of the repaired video and download it to your Mac.

Aside from Clever Online Video Repair, there are several video repair tools competing with each other to be the #1 solution. The key to selecting the right one is knowing exactly what they offer and whether or not they make sense for the scope of your needs.

Method 2: Use VLC’s Always Fix Option

VLC Media Player is a popular multimedia editing and streaming app with a simple interface and various tools that can help make corrupted video files playable again. For this method, we’ll be utilizing its auto-repair feature for AVI files (we’ll show you how it can work for ANY video file type).

While it’s unsuitable for more complex errors (e.g. “moov atom not found” error), it can work for minor corruption.

1. Download and install VLC Media Player but don’t open it yet.
2. Open Finder.
3. Navigate to the folder where your corrupted video file is located. Then, right-click your file and select Rename.
4. Replace the characters after the . from whatever it currently is to avi (e.g., brokenvideo.mp4 becomes brokenvideo.avi). Then, in the dialogue box that appears, click Use .avi to confirm the renaming.
5. Open VLC Media Player. On the menu bar, click VLC media player and select Settings…
6. Navigate to the Input / Codecs menu. Under the Codecs / Muxers section, click the dropdown menu beside Repair AVI Files and select Always fix. Then, click the Save button to confirm the new settings.
7. On the menu bar, click File and select Open File…
8. In the dialogue box, select the video file you renamed in step 3. Then, click Open.

When you attempt to open the video file, VLC will automatically try to repair it before streaming — you’ll quickly find out if the repair attempt was successful.

Method 3: Re-Encode Broken Video

Another way to fix a corrupted video is to convert (re-encode) it. Conversion refers to rebuilding or transcoding a video file, which can help repair corruption in different ways. It can rebuild damaged containers (which can fix indexing and file structure errors), replace corrupted codecs, and make the file more compatible with the media player you prefer to use.

Option A: Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder is a video encoder and converter built around FFmpeg, a powerful multimedia processing tool. Basically, Shutter Encoder wraps the FFmpeg tool into a beginner-friendly interface (whereas FFmpeg by itself is only operable via Terminal commands).

It offers a lot of re-encoding options (as well as other modification features like Rewrap) whilst still being easy for beginners to pick up immediately.

1. Download Shutter Encoder from the app’s official website. Its pkg installation file comes with a handy wizard to guide you through installing the app.
2. After installing it, open Shutter Encoder (you’ll find it in the Applications folder).
3. Drag your corrupted video file into the empty space in Shutter Encoder’s window (where it says “Drop files here”).
4. Click the blank dropdown menu under Choose function.
5. Scroll through the pop-out menu and select DNxHD.
6. Click the dropdown menu beside DNxHD — on the other side of the arrow — and select your preferred bit rate (higher bit rates result in superior quality but much larger file size outputs). Finally, click Start function.

Once the progress bar at the bottom of the window (under Progress status) shows 100%, you’ll find the new video file in the same folder the corrupted video file is also stored in.

Option B: VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player, which we already featured in Method 2, is also capable of converting and transcoding video files. It’s worth trying if you already installed the app earlier or if Shutter Encoder doesn’t work – VLC Media Player has its own way of managing errors during the transcoding process that might prove more effective in your specific case.

1. Download and install VLC Media Player on your Mac (If you haven’t already done so).
2. Open VLC Media Player. On the menu bar, click File and select the Convert / Stream option.
3. In the Drop media here section, click the Open media… button.
4. In the dialogue box that appears, locate and select your corrupted video file. Then, click the Open button.
5. In the Choose Profile section, click the Customize… button.
6. Navigate to the Encapsulation menu. Then, select the format of the new container VLC will build for your corruption video file. We recommend MP4/MOV for compatibility purposes (even if it’s the format originally used). You can also modify the video file’s Video codec and Audio codec if necessary. Click Apply when you’re satisfied with the parameters.
7. In the Choose Destination section of the Convert & Stream window, click Save as File.
8. Next, click the Browse… button that appears in its place.
9. Choose a new name for your video file. Then, use the dropdown menu to select a folder where you want VLC to save the converted file. Finally, click Save.

After clicking the Save button, the conversion process will automatically commence. Once it’s done, make sure to test the video file by opening it with VLC Media Player (File > Open File).

Method 4: Use Untrunc to Fix Truncated Videos

Untrunc is a free and open-source video repair tool that can fix videos with truncated or “incomplete” file data. This typically results from disrupted recording sessions like your camera suddenly dying mid-capture. Basically, Untrunc attempts to make incomplete videos ”whole” again by parsing reference data from a healthy file sample.

1. Open any browser on your Mac.
2. Navigate to the brew.sh webpage. Click the clipboard icon beside the code snippet in order to copy the command that will let you install Homebrew.
3. Open the Terminal app (which you can find in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder). Then, paste the command you copied in step 2 and press Return.
4. The Terminal logs will let you know once Homebrew has been successfully installed. When you’re able to enter commands again, execute the following:

   brew install --cask docker

   

5. You’ll find a new app called Docker in your Applications folder. Launch it and click Open if prompted by macOS.
6. In the Docker Subscription Service Agreement dialogue box, click Agree (don’t worry — paid subscriptions are only for commercial use). You can skip the sign-in and profile customization steps. Once Docker’s dashboard appears, check for the words Engine running in the bottom left corner of the window. Then, minimize Docker but keep it running.
7. Open your browser again and open this GitHub page of an updated version of Untrunc. Then, click <> Code and select Download ZIP. macOS should automatically unzip the downloaded file and output a folder called untrunc-master.
8. Open the Terminal app again. Drag the untrunc-master folder into the Terminal window and press Return (if you encounter an error, type cd and add a space before dragging the folder).
9. Then, paste the following command in Terminal and press Return:

   docker build --build-arg FF_VER=3.3.9 -t untrunc .

   

10. Finally, you can use the following command to execute the untrunc operation on your corrupted video file:

    docker run -v ~/Desktop/demo/:/mnt untrunc /mnt/fixedvideo.mp4 /mnt/brokenvideo.mp4

    Replace Desktop/demo with the appropriate folder pathname of the directory where your corrupted video and healthy video files are stored. Replace fixedvideo.mp4 and brokenvideo.mp4 with the appropriate file names of your corrupted and healthy videos.

Once Untrunc is done creating the file, it will be saved as brokenvideo.mp4_fixed.mp4 (except the first part will use whatever you named your corrupted file).

Method 5: Use FFmpeg Framework

FFmpeg is a free, open-source, and comprehensive suite of tools and libraries that you can use to convert or transcode your video file. With FFmpeg, you can quickly execute a bunch of different operations on your corrupted video file to attempt to fix it with a variety of solutions.

1. Open the Terminal app (Finder > Applications > Utilities). Then, use the following command to install FFmpeg via Homebrew:

   brew install ffmpeg

   

2. Again, Terminal will let you know once FFmpeg is fully installed. Then, use the Change Directory command to operate Terminal in the folder where your corrupted file is located:

   cd documents/demo_folder

   Replace documents/demo_folder with the corresponding folder pathname on your Mac.

3. You can now use FFmpeg’s tools on your corrupted video. Steps 6, 7, and 8 feature 3 different commands that you can try to repair your video. The first command simply copies the video and audio streams of the original file to a new one, which is helpful for minor file system structure damage:

   ffmpeg -i brokenfile.mp4 -c copy fixedfile.mp4

   Replace brokenfile.mp4 with your corrupted video’s file name. This goes for the rest of the commands featured below.

4. This command also copies the original video and audio streams of your corrupted file and creates a new file. The difference is that this command contains parameters that tell FFmpeg to ignore errors that may prevent the operation from commencing:

   ffmpeg -err_detect ignore_err -i brokenfile.mp4 -c copy fixedfile.mp4

   

5. If copying the streams of the corrupted file didn’t work, the next operation you can try is re-encoding the video. This can repair more severe corruption like damaged frames or corrupted codec data. Use the following command to re-encode your video file to an MP4 file with a H.264 codec:

   ffmpeg.exe -i "brokenfile.mp4" -c:v libx264 -crf 22 -preset slow fixedfile.mp4

   

After running each command, the Terminal logs will tell you if the repair attempt was a success or not.

Need Help With Your Corrupted Videos?

Video repair is a complex process. If you hit a wall, try reaching out for help from other users or from paid experts. Here are a few places you can try:

• Handy Recovery Forum – The Handy Recovery Advisor Community is a discussion forum where you can engage directly with our team and other users to ask for help with repairing your video file (as well as talk about other file preservation topics, like data recovery).
• Reddit – Reddit is a very well-known discussion forum and an incredible resource where you can find hundreds of users bringing in unique knowledge about video repair and repair tools (e.g. r/ffmpeg is FFmpeg’s dedicated “subreddit”).
• Paid services – You pay for experts to repair your file directly. Check if there are any reputable video repair services in your local community or find one online (e.g. Aero Quartet).

FAQ