Video Converter

Drop a video, have its format detected for you, and convert to MP4, WebM or GIF entirely in your browser. Ten input formats accepted, nothing uploaded.

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Drop your video file here
.mp4, .m4v, .mov, .mkv, .webm, .avi, .3gp, .mts, .m2ts, .gif

🔒 Private by design: everything runs locally in your browser and never uploaded to any server.

Written and maintained by Last updated

One page for the file you cannot open

Most video conversion on this site happens on a dedicated page, one per pair, because someone searching for a specific conversion wants that conversion and its own options. This page exists for the other situation, which is holding a file whose format you did not choose and are not sure about.

A clip off an old camcorder, a recording from a security system, a file someone sent from a phone that nobody else’s phone will play. In that situation you do not want to identify the format first and then find the matching tool. You want to drop the file somewhere and be told what it is.

So the input format is detected and shown back to you, and the only decision left is what to turn it into.

Converting a file

  1. Drop a video onto the box, or use the file picker. One file at a time.
  2. Check the detected input format shown under the file name.
  3. Choose Convert to from the three output options. A format different from the input is preselected.
  4. Convert, and watch the progress percentage. Cancel is available throughout.
  5. Download the result, or convert another file.

The output list is short on purpose

Ten formats go in and three come out. That asymmetry is the honest shape of what a browser can do.

Decoding is the easy direction. The engine here can read a wide range of containers and codecs, which is why the input list is long and covers the awkward formats that turn up from cameras and phones.

Encoding is the constrained direction, because it needs an encoder that works reliably in a single threaded WebAssembly environment without special headers this site cannot use. Three targets meet that bar, and the dropdown is generated from the same registry that defines the accepted inputs, so it is not possible for the interface to offer a conversion the engine cannot perform.

Choosing between the three

MP4 is the answer to compatibility. It re-encodes to H.264 video with AAC audio, which is the combination that plays on essentially everything, and it is what to pick when the goal is for the file simply to open. Because it is a genuine re-encode rather than a container swap, it takes proportionate time.

WebM is the answer for the web, and it is the slower of the two video targets. The settings used here favour speed over file size, and even so a long clip on a single threaded engine takes real time. If the file is going onto a page you control, it is worth the wait.

GIF is not really a video format and behaves accordingly. Every frame is stored as its own image with no compression between frames, so a GIF of any length is enormous unless it is constrained. This conversion drops the frame rate to 15 per second and the width to 480 pixels for exactly that reason, and it builds a colour palette from your own clip rather than using a generic one, which is the difference between a clean result and a banded one.

Where the dedicated pages are better

This hub keeps the interface to a single dropdown, which means it does not expose per conversion settings. Whenever you know the conversion you want, the dedicated page is the better choice.

MP4 to GIF lets you set the width and frame rate rather than accepting the defaults. MP4 to WebM exposes the encoder choice. MKV to MP4, MOV to MP4, AVI to MP4 and WebM to MP4 each cover their own pair with the appropriate handling.

If what you actually want is a smaller file rather than a different format, Compress Video is the right tool for an MP4, and if you only want the sound, Video to MP3 skips the video entirely. The rest are on the video hub.

Frequently asked questions

Which input formats does it accept?

Ten, namely MP4, M4V, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, 3GP, MTS, M2TS and GIF. You do not select the input format anywhere, it is detected from the file and displayed back to you before you convert. A file outside that list is refused with a message naming the extension it saw and listing what is accepted, rather than failing partway through a conversion.

Why only three output formats?

Because the list is what genuinely works in this stack rather than what sounds impressive. MP4, WebM and GIF are the three the browser side engine can encode reliably, and the output list is generated from the same registry that drives the accepted input list, so a format that cannot actually be produced can never appear in the dropdown. A converter offering twenty targets and failing on most of them is worse than one offering three that work.

What does converting to MP4 actually do?

A full re-encode to H.264 video and AAC audio, which is the maximum compatibility combination. Every device made in the last fifteen years plays it, and it is what to pick when the goal is simply for the file to open somewhere it currently does not. It is a re-encode rather than a container change, so it takes real time and costs one generation of quality.

How does the GIF output behave?

It downscales to 480 pixels wide and 15 frames per second, and the page says so before you convert. That is not an oversight, it is what keeps a GIF from being enormous, since the format stores every frame as its own image with no compression between frames. The conversion also builds a colour palette from your specific clip rather than using a fixed one, which is what stops the result looking posterised.

Why is WebM slower than MP4?

Because of the encoder, not the container. The default WebM settings here are tuned for speed rather than size, and the whole thing runs on a single threaded engine inside your browser tab rather than on multiple cores. A long or high resolution clip will take a while. The page shows a progress figure throughout and a cancel control that genuinely stops the work.

Does my video get uploaded?

No. The conversion engine is a WebAssembly build running inside your tab, so the file is read from your disk, processed in memory and written back to your downloads folder. Nothing is transmitted, which is why there is no file size limit imposed by a server, no queue and no account. The practical limit is your device's memory and your patience.

When should I use a dedicated tool instead of this one?

Whenever you know exactly which conversion you want, because the dedicated pages expose options this hub does not. This page is the entry point for someone holding an unfamiliar file who wants it to work somewhere, and it deliberately keeps the interface to one dropdown.

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