How to: Install FFmpeg

Install FFmpeg on MacOS

We'll start by opening a terminal (⌘ + T) and installing Homebrew.

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

Now we can install FFmpeg

brew install ffmpeg

If you want to install FFmpeg with additional options, such as Chromaprint, use the following:

brew uninstall --force --ignore-dependencies ffmpeg
brew install chromaprint amiaopensource/amiaos/decklinksdk
brew tap homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg
brew install homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg --with-chromaprint

You can verify the install was successful by checking its version

ffmpeg -version

Install FFmpeg on Ubuntu / Debian

We'll start by opening a terminal (CTRL + SHIFT + T), updating our APT repositories and installing FFmpeg stable

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ffmpeg

You can verify the install was successful by checking its version

ffmpeg -version

Install FFmpeg on Windows

We'll start by downloading FFmpeg. Go to the download page and click on the Windows logo in the middle:

On the gyan.dev builds page, click on ffmpeg-git-full.7z and download it.

Once it has been downloaded, unzip the file with 7zip

Rename the extracted folder to ffmpeg

Move the ffmpeg folder to the root of your C:\ drive

Run cmd as an administrator

Set the environment path variable for FFmpeg by running the following command:

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

Now, reboot your system and verify that the install was successful by checking its version

ffmpeg -version

Using FFmpeg via Docker

If you're familiar with Docker and would like to use FFmpeg for cloud-based deployments, you should try this excellent image, which I've personally used in a production environment for Downsampl, and works like a charm. Github source repository for the image is here.

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