Run ffmpeg on Terminal MacOS

Question

I'm rather new to MacOS and I cannot find it easy to working with Terminal to get ffmpeg run properly as I have on Window.

I have got ffmpeg binary from http://ffmpegmac.net and I try running the executable in Terminal, it tells that the command not found ? The only way I can run it by now is using command : "open ffmpeg", but this way the Terminal open in another window and this is not what I'm expecting.

Is there any ways to call ffmpeg directly in Terminal (just like run in on Windows cmd) or I'm missing anything ?

Solution

Mac OS X (and Unix) is different to Windows. Calling open ffmpeg isn't guaranteed to open the binary in the directory, it's guaranteed to find the binary in your PATH variable (do echo $PATH to see that). Try open ./ffmpeg instead.

You might actually be best off installing it with Homebrew, that'll give you system wide access to it.

Comments

[slhck]

open ./ffmpeg doesn't make sense for a shell command as OS X Launch Services will try opening the binary in another Terminal window, stopping after that. Just do ./ffmpeg

[Nicholas Smith]

Good point, depends on what he wants to do with it so I left the open in for if he did want it opening separate from the Terminal he called it from.

[user2139175]

Thanks Nicholas, ./ffmpeg is what I'm looking for, you saved me the day for these MacOS stuffs