How to install FFmpeg (Linux/Mac/Windows)

Installing FFmpeg varies vastly depending on your operating system of choice. In this post, I will show you how you can easily install FFmpeg on any operating system

Windows

Step 1: Downloading the executable

• Easiest way to install FFmpeg on windows is to go HERE and download the latest .exe
• An Example link would be THIS
• Extract the downloaded file and copy it to somewhere like C:\ffmpeg (you should rename the extracted folder to ffmpeg )

Step 2: Updating the PATH

• Open a command prompt as the administrator and run the following

setx /m PATH "C:\ffmpeg\bin;%PATH%"

This will add the C:\ffmpeg\bin to your PATH variable, which means you should be able to run ffmpeg from anywhere on your command prompt

Step 3: Verifying

Close your command prompt and re-open it and run this:

ffmpeg -version

You should see the version  if you have installed it properly

MacOS

The best way to install ffmpeg on mac is via brew

Step 1: Install Brew (if you don't have it)

Open a terminal window and run the following to install HomeBrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Step 2 : Install FFmpeg

brew install ffmpeg

That's it. Pretty easy right?

Linux

All the popular Linux distros have ffmpeg in their package repository, so it is just a matter of issuing one command to install it

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ffmpeg

Fedora

sudo dnf install ffmpeg

Arch

sudo pacman -S ffmpeg

That's all, have fun!