How to install FFMPEG on Windows

Author:
David Bosch - Mar 4th, 2022

FFMPEG (what is ffmpeg?) is a popular tool to encode, transcode and convert multimedia files. It supports an extensive number of formats including AVI, MPEG, MP4, WEBM and more. FFMPEG is open source and free software licensed under the GNU General Public License.

FFMPEG is available for Mac OSX, Windows, Linux and many other platforms.

Install FFMPEG on Windows

Use the following steps if you want to install FFMPEG binaries on Windows 7, Windows 10 or Windows 11:

• STEP 1: Go to the FFMPEG downloads page

  Here you will find all the options for downloading FFMPEG, including the source code and the binaries for the different platforms

• STEP 2: Select Windows platform

  Under the "Get packages & executable files" section, click on the Windows logo to get the list of sources

  From the sources list, I recommend using the builds by BtbN, as they use ZIP instead of 7z

  Download the latest version of FFMPEG including all libraries to your Downloads folder on your computer

• STEP 3: Unzip the file

  Once you downloaded the file, unzip it in the Downloads folder. It will create a new folder with all files inside.

• STEP 4: Rename the folder to "ffmpeg"

  Rename the recent created folder to ffmpeg and move the folder to your preferred location. I suggest moving it to the root folder (C:\) or the "Program Files" folder (C:\Program Files).

• STEP 5: Add the FFMPEG folder in your PATH environment variable

  If you want to use FFMPEG without specifying the full path to the executable, you must add the FFMPEG folder in the list of directories in the PATH environment variable. The PATH variable specifies the directories to be searched to find a command, in this case, ffmpeg (learn more).

  Run cmd as administrator (learn how) and type this command:

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

• STEP 6: Restart your computer and check the installation

  Now, to confirm that everything is properly installed, restart your computer and from the CMD, check the FFMPEG version:

  ffmpeg -version

  The output should look like something like this:

  

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