Being one of the most common formats for video files that is compatible with most of the platforms and devices that host or play video, MP4 has quickly spread all over the internet as the go-to format. There are quite a lot of users that look specifically for MP4 movies so that they can easily play them back from a multitude of devices without having to apply any further conversion.
So, if you’re one of those people that are wondering how to download MP4 on Mac, we have the perfect list of tools for you. Keep reading to discover a full suite of downloaders that will make downloading videos Mac easier and your movie nights a lot more enjoyable.
The number one tool when it comes to MP4 download on Mac, VideoDuke can easily deal with any video in .mp4 format on multiple platforms. Over 100 of the most popular streaming and video hosting services like YouTube, Vimeo or Dailymotion are directly incorporated in VideoDuke so you can navigate these websites without ever needing to open a browser window.
Even more than that, you get to choose from 2 ways of operating VideoDuke, Mac video downloader. Simple mode allows you to quickly download the files you want while the Advanced mode gives you way more liberty when it comes to fine tuning of the files you are saving.
Taking into consideration that many users on YouTube like to organize their videos in playlists and make entire libraries of their favorite titles, VideoDuke included the possibility to download the entire playlist in just one click. No longer will you waste time trying to find MP4 videos download on Mac, you can now get them all in one place. If any of those free movies online have built-in subtitles, VideoDuke will have no difficulty in saving the subtitles as well. Have you ever been frustrated for having a great list of movies you want to watch but forgetting most of them until the next day? Thanks to the bookmarking functionality of VideoDuke that will no longer be a problem.
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Using the 4K Video Downloader you can download from SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr or Dailymotion with ease. When it comes to YouTube, you can perform arrange a MP4 download on Mac with just a few clicks. Also, you can get entire playlists and all the subtitles for the movies you download. When it comes to formats, MP4, OGG, M4V or FLV are all available and the entire software is free. The only downside comes from not being able to play the videos you download and doesn’t offer formats for special devices.
The 5KPlayer is a good answer to the how to download MP4 on Mac question, especially if you want to be able to choose from a wide range of formats. No matter if you want to save your files in MP4, MP3, FLV, MOV, 3GP, AVI or WMV you have the liberty to do so. And this automatically translates into being able to download and convert videos for all kind of devices. From iPhone, iPad or iPod all the way to HTC, Samsung, Kindle or Blackberry, all the smartphones are supported. They had to deal with speculations regarding some malware and adware related to their installer, however, that’s in the past now.
Supporting over 50 websites and being able to convert the vast majority of online videos to either MP4, WMV, MP3, FLV, MOV, AVI or 3GP, YTD is another great suggestion for you. Thanks to the various formats you can choose from and the conversion option, you can prepare the videos to be viewed on a wide range of devices including tablets and smartphones. Quite a complete too to arrange a MP4 download on Mac.
Total Video Downloader, just like the name suggests, is a complete tool for getting all your favorite videos off the Internet and safely stored in your computer. You get to choose from multiple websites like Vimeo, YouTube, Dailymotion or social media networks like Twitter and there are just as many formats to choose from as well. The only downside with it is that it doesn’t offer the possibility to optimize or convert the downloaded videos.
Apowersoft is a complete video downloader for any Mac OS X and it will enable you to quickly organize a MP4 download on Mac task. Allowing you to download multiple videos at once and even manage the order of download, this is great for when you’re building an offline library. It also doubles as a high-quality video player with plenty of incorporated codecs so you won’t have any issues playing back any of the videos you download. While it does an excellent job downloading videos from the Internet, the Apowersoft downloader won’t be able to save images or other resources from a webpage.
A very good name for the complete tool offered by iTube Studio. With this you can download and transform any video file on the Internet into a video on your computer. Even more than that, you can also keep just the audio from a video and build your own playlist. It’s compatible with 10,000 video sharing sites out there and it claims to be able to provide 3x faster downloads. However, you won’t be able to test that unless you pay for the full version.
Next in line, in our top MP4 download on Mac tools, we have Bigasoft. These guys deliver a fresh software and the website has a very cool touch to it. Allowing users to download videos in 4K and to choose from dozens of formats like AVI, WMV, DivX, MOV, MKV, MPG or FLV, this is a versatile tool that will get the job done accurately and fast. However, with all the work they put into the website and presenting the product, they kinda forgot to work more on the user interface for the actual downloader.
Coming from the same guys that deliver the Bigasoft Video Downloader Pro, there’s not much more we can say about this app. It basically does the same functions as the previous app, with the difference that they’re mostly focused on MP4 and delivering the highest-possible quality for this format. The user interface is pretty much identical so if you liked Bigasoft, you’re going to be ok with AnyMP4 Mac Video one as well.
MP4, or MPEG-4 if you prefer the full name, was created for Internet multimedia in the low-speed era when there was a need for highly compressed files that kept the quality levels up. Without ever being planned, the MP4 file format has developed into one of the most used video formats in the world. The MP4 files can have different extensions, out of which the M4A, M4B or the M4V are the most popular.
MP4 | MP3 |
---|---|
Can deliver images, audio, video and text | Used for audio coding only |
There are still some players not supporting MP4 | Every music player out there supports MP3 files |
Developed in 2003 | In action since 1994 |
Released by ISO | Developed by engineers from Fraunhofer Society, Philips and the IRT |
More complex compression method and more space required | Can occupy very little space |
Better audio quality thanks to the lossless compression | MP3 compression results in minor loss of audio quality |
You can get .mp4,.m4a or .m4v | File extension is .mp3 |
After going through this journey of discovering the best tools to get MP4 files off the Internet and finding the answer for how to download MP4 videos on Mac, we would like to thank you for the patience of going through all the technical stuff. We hope that this article was informative enough and we encourage you to share your impressions in the comment section below.