User level: Level 1 (5 points)What should I use to open some old quicktime .mov files? circa 2002 current quicktime won't open them.
Posted on Oct 24, 2026 9:16 AM
User level: Level 10 (462,771 points)Oct 24, 2026 9:31 AM in response to MrConsistent
Try VLC.
VLC media player - general, free media player that plays just about anything. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Some like IINA.
If I had that kind of file I would use Invisor Lite to look at the contents and see which component it has that is something that Quicktime doesn't like. If necessary you can use a free utility such as Handbrake to transcode the movie to something more recent such as H.265 or H.264, with AAC audio.
User level: Level 6 (8,142 points)Oct 24, 2026 9:33 AM in response to MrConsistent
VLC will almost certainly play them - it's free web download and there are apps for mac, iOS and iPadOs.
Handbrake will almost certainly convert them to some other format if that's what you want. Also a web download.
Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256382154