Compress · runs on your device

Compress MOV files in your browser

Drop your .mov files in, set a target size or quality, and Video Mender re-encodes them locally — MOV recordings usually shrink by 60–80% because cameras record at far higher bitrates than playback needs.

Nothing is uploaded

Drop video files here

MOV · MP4 · M4V

Choose video files to convert

Output format

Plays on effectively every browser, phone, TV and editor when it holds H.264 and AAC.

How to size the output

A constant quality target. File sizes vary with how demanding the footage is.

Quality — 6 of 10

Resolution limit

Files smaller than the limit are left alone. Capping usually looks better than lowering the bitrate.

Frame rate

Audio

Platform presets — editable

These are dated observations, not permanent platform limits — all were last checked on 2026-08-01. Every one sets an ordinary target size you can edit afterwards.

MOV files are among the most compressible video you will encounter, and the reason is what produces them. QuickTime MOV is what Apple cameras and screen recorders write, and capture devices deliberately over-spend on bitrate: they are encoding in real time, with no chance to analyse the footage, so they leave a large safety margin. A considered re-encode reclaims most of that margin.

Output defaults to MP4 with H.264 and AAC rather than staying in MOV, and that is a deliberate choice this page states plainly rather than doing quietly. A great many MOV files hold HEVC, and HEVC playback outside recent Apple hardware is unreliable. Writing H.264 MP4 produces a file that is both smaller than the original and plays everywhere. If you specifically need the MOV container back, switch the output — it is one control, and the warning goes away.

The trade-off is stated honestly: this is a re-encode, so it is lossy. On camera-original footage the loss is very hard to see, because you are removing the safety margin rather than real detail. On a MOV that has already been compressed once, results are worse — every generation costs something.

What this actually does to your file

Rewrap or re-encode

Rewrapping a MOV to MP4 is instant and lossless but does not reduce the file size at all, because the compressed data is unchanged. That is why compression here always re-encodes. If a rewrap is what you want, use the MP4 to MOV page in reverse.

Quality

A lossy re-encode. On camera-original MOV footage the visible loss at the Balanced preset is minimal because the source was over-provisioned; on already-compressed MOV files it is more noticeable.

MOV files holding HEVC are re-encoded to H.264 by default for compatibility. The file grows relative to HEVC at equal quality, but still shrinks substantially relative to the original bitrate.
ProRes MOV files from editing workflows compress enormously — often by 95% — because ProRes is an intermediate format, not a delivery one.
10-bit and HDR MOV footage re-encoded to 8-bit H.264 can shift in appearance. Keep the original if colour accuracy matters.
Screen recordings with mostly static content compress far better than handheld footage; the estimate accounts for duration, not content.

How to use this page

Add .mov files — camera footage, screen recordings or exports.
Pick a target size in MB, or leave quality mode at Balanced.
Cap the resolution if the source is 4K and the destination is a phone screen.
Start the queue, then download the results or take a ZIP.

Where the result plays

Checked against the containers and codecs this page produces, stated conservatively.

Target	Works	Detail
MP4 output (default)	Yes	H.264 and AAC. Plays on every browser, phone, TV and editor.
MOV output	Partly	Keeps the QuickTime container. Native on Apple, patchy elsewhere.
Email and messaging	Yes	Use a platform preset or a target size; MOV originals are usually far too large to attach.
Final Cut and QuickTime	Yes	Both accept the compressed H.264 output, in either container.

The formats involved

Format	Read	Write	What it is
MOV	Yes	Yes	Apple QuickTime. Structurally a close cousin of MP4, which is why MOV files can often be rewrapped to MP4 with no re-encode.
MP4	Yes	Yes	The MPEG-4 Part 14 container. It is a wrapper, not a codec — an MP4 usually holds H.264 or HEVC video with AAC audio.
M4V	Yes	Yes	Apple's MP4 variant used by iTunes. Byte-for-byte it is an MP4; the extension exists so iTunes can flag optional FairPlay DRM.

Tested limits

Real ceilings measured on real devices, not a marketing claim of unlimited.

Limit	Desktop	iPhone / iPad	Why
File size — rewrap	1.3 GiB	384 MiB	Rewrapping never decodes a frame, so it tolerates far larger files.
File size — re-encode	1.0 GiB	256 MiB	Decoding holds uncompressed frames in memory, which is the real constraint.
Clip length — re-encode	4:00:00	30:00	Beyond this, progress reporting and memory behaviour stop being dependable.
Resolution — re-encode	4096 × 2160	1920 × 1080	A 4K frame is about 12 MB decoded, before the encoder allocates anything.

If something goes wrong

Why did my output become an MP4?

MP4 is the default on this page because it plays reliably everywhere while MOV does not, and because so many MOV files hold HEVC. Switch the output container to MOV if you need it — nothing is renamed silently.

The MOV barely got smaller.

It had probably been compressed already. A file that has been through an encoder once has no safety margin left to reclaim; use target-size mode to force a specific reduction and accept the visible cost.

The compressed video looks softer than the original.

You asked for a size the footage cannot hold at full detail. Raise the target, raise the quality preset, or lower the resolution instead of the bitrate — downscaling usually looks better than starving a large frame of bits.

A 4K MOV failed or took very long.

4K re-encoding in WebAssembly is heavy. Cap the resolution at 1080p, which is faster and almost always the better result for the destination anyway.

Your video never leaves this device

This is a structural property of the application, not a policy we ask you to take on trust. There is no upload endpoint, no API route and no server action anywhere in the codebase, so there is nowhere for a video to be sent even by mistake.

Conversion runs in WebAssembly inside this browser tab. The engine is served from this domain and loaded only when you start a job.
The Content-Security-Policy restricts network connections to this origin, so the page is not permitted to contact a third party at all.
Nothing is stored. Close the tab and every queued file and finished output is gone — which is also why you should download results before you leave.
There are no accounts and no AI. Anonymous page views are counted — which page, roughly what country, what kind of device — and nothing whatsoever about your files.

The repository contains a test that fails the build if any media byte is passed to fetch, XMLHttpRequest, sendBeacon or a WebSocket. See the privacy page for how that is verified.

Questions

How do I reduce MOV file size?

Re-encode it at a lower bitrate, optionally at a lower resolution. Add the file here, set either a target size in megabytes or a quality preset, and the work runs in your browser without the file being uploaded.

Why are MOV files so large?

Because cameras encode in real time and cannot analyse footage before compressing it, so they use a generous bitrate as a safety margin. A considered re-encode typically recovers 60–80% of the size with little visible difference.

Can I compress a MOV without losing quality?

Not truly. Rewrapping is lossless but does not reduce size; reducing size requires discarding information. On camera-original footage the loss is usually invisible, which is the honest version of that promise.

Should I convert MOV to MP4 as well as compressing it?

Usually yes, and it costs nothing extra since the file is being re-encoded anyway. MP4 with H.264 plays on far more devices than MOV, which is why it is the default output here.

Can I compress several MOV files at once?

Yes. Queue as many as you like, apply one preset to all of them or override individual files, and download results one by one or as a ZIP with a manifest.

Is my footage uploaded anywhere?

No. MOV files are frequently personal recordings, and this tool processes them entirely in the browser. There is no upload endpoint and no server-side processing in the application.