How to Compress Large Video Files on MacOS
Don’t mess with the resolution and quality of your video. Send your video no matter how large for free with Smash!
IN THIS GUIDE, YOU’RE GOING TO READ THE 3 OTHER OPTIONS TO COMPRESS VIDEO FILE ON MAC:
1. Apple’s Native Compression Utility
2. iMovie
3. QuickTime
Macs are great for creating incredible video content. Whether its media for a client, a new video for your YouTube channel, a college project, or just editing together the video you captured at the latest family reunion, Macs make it easy to edit and publish great video content. But these days, great video content often also means large video file sizes. You can understand why when even the most basic smartphone camera is capturing HD quality shots and 4K, 8K, and 12K cameras are not unusual. Add to this high quality sound, graphical effects and consumer and professional levels of CGI, and your video file can get very big very quickly.
Now if you want to share that large video file from your Mac, you can run into problems. The files are too big to drop into a Message, too large to email, and sharing from the cloud can be a hassle when you haven’t got much space left in your iCloud or Google Drive. A common solution is to compress the file, something that has long been popular even on iOS and Android mobile devices. But is it your best option? And if it is, what’s the easiest way to zip your video and get it where it needs to go? Read on for options!
Don’t Zip Your Video, Just Send it Instead.
It might seem a little backwards but the best way to compress a large video file on a Mac might be…not to compress it at all. Think of it like this: the problem you are facing is how to get that huge video off your Mac and onto someone else’s device. Compression might be a solution – but wouldn’t you rather just send the file as it is, in full resolution and just the way you created it?
With a file transfer service like Smash you can do just that. With just a couple of clicks you can send a link to the actual video file that is on your Mac by email, by instant message, or even by text. You can download the Smash Mac app (it lives in your Menu bar, so it is always ready to help you share your videos) or use the web portal through Safari or any other browser. Just select the file, wait for it to upload, copy the URL, and share it – you’re done.
Unlike zipping a file, your recipient receives the full video. The resolution is perfect, the sounds is perfect, everything is just like you see it on your own Apple machine. What’s more, it’s free, and no matter how big your video file is, it always will be. Try the Mac app today, or visit the web portal to send the video that everyone says you have to compress but which you now know you don’t!
Three Ways to Compress a Video File on MacOS
If sending the file as it is in its high resolution, full quality package isn’t what you’re after, and if you have your heart set on compressing or zipping your video, there are at least three ways you can do that on Mac. The advantage that all of these methods have over downloading a third-party compression app is that they are free, the processing is done on your own computer, and they are all standard applications on any Mac machine supported by Apple itself.
The three methods here are:
zipping the file from Finder with Apple’s built in compression utility
reducing the size of the file with some adjustments in iMovie
compressing the video file with QuickTime
For each one we’ll explain what it is, how to do it, and look at the pros and cons.
1. ZIP with Apple’s Native Compression Utility
You don’t need to download an application or open a browser window to zip a file on your Mac. If you can locate the file in Finder, compression is just a right click away. As Apple themselves explain, “compressed files take up less disk space than uncompressed files, so compressing is useful…for sending information over the internet”. Here’s how to do it:
In a Finder window, find your video file
Either right-click or control-click the file and select Compress from the shortcut menu
The file will be zipped and a new [filename].zip file will be in the same folder
Pros: There is nothing easier than creating a zip archive of your video – two clicks and it is done!
Cons: You don’t have any control over the size of the zip archive you create, and you still have to get the zipped file off your Mac.
2. Reduce Video File Size with iMovie
Macs come with a bunch of great software pre-installed or available for free from the Mac App Store. One of these that all video content creators will know well is iMovie. If you load your large video file up in iMovie, it’s pretty easy to choose settings for resolution, quality, and compression that will reduce the size of your file. Here’s how:
Drag your video into iMovie
Go to the Menu bar and click File, then Share, then File
In the pop-up window, select desired settings for Format, Resolution, Quality, and Compression
Keep an eye on the bottom left hand side of the window because it is here that you’ll see an estimate of the size of the file you will generate.
Pros: It’s easy and you have control over the different settings so you know how big the file will be when it emerges from compression.
Cons: That beautiful high-resolution video will be no more. The file you generate will be smaller, but it’ll be a lower quality version of what you have created, and you still need to send it on its way, too.
3. Compress Video with QuickTime
QuickTime is not a video editor, or at least not a very high powered one. It’s mainly on your Mac to play the MP4 files that Apple’s platform prefers, but it can do some pretty basic encoding, too, and help you achieve a smaller file size with minimum fuss. Here’s how you can do it:
Open your file in QuickTime but don’t click play
Go to the Menu bar and select File, then Export As
Select the resolution (1080p is a good option), then use the dropdown to select Greater Compatibility (H.264) codec
Click Save
The H.264 codec offers a good balance between video quality and file size at low bit rates, and this makes it a good option for compressing a larger video file into something more manageable.
Pros: It doesn’t take more than a couple of clicks to generate your smaller file, and you know it will work on any modern device, too, thanks to the H.264 encoding.
Cons: Once again, the resolution is going to suffer, and your video won’t be the same quality as the one that got dropped into QuickTime in the first place. Oh, and you still have to share it!
The Best Way to Compress a Large Video File on macOS
QuickTime, iMovie, and Apple’s native compression tools are great, and they can help you compress, zip, and reduce the size of your large video file in just a couple of clicks. That’s super convenient, absolutely free, and all the processing is done securely on your own machine. The problem of sharing that compressed file remains, however, and even if you can reduce the file size enough to email or message it to a client, colleague, or friend, it’s going to be a lower-resolution, lower-quality version of your work.
That’s why the best way to compress a large video on a Mac is not to compress it or zip it at all. Instead, using the Smash Mac app or the Smash web portal, you can send a copy of the video in full, in all its high quality, and with all the bells and whistles for free. You don’t have to worry about it getting pixelated, about dodgy conversion encoding, or about getting a reputation for being someone who shares low-quality work. With Smash, you share the best quality video for free, in total security, and lightning fast.
Download the Smash Mac app or try sending your first video via the web portal today.
Need To Compress Large Video Files
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes! If you want to upgrade your Smash experience you can, and a lot of content creators, media professionals, and leading production teams around the world have done so. But sending a file of any size for free will always remain a part of the Smash experience – try it for yourself: if you can upload it, you can send it for free.
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Sure. There are a bundle of free and paid apps that will zip or compress your video file, but you still have to wonder why you want to do that. If you can send the file in its full resolution at the perfect size and without impacting the quality at all using Smash, why wouldn’t you just do that?
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Maybe – it depends on how small the compressed archive is. Zipping or compressing a file changes its size but, if it is still bigger than what can be handled as an email attachment, you still won’t be able to send it. It’s not the type of file that your email service is rejecting, it’s the size of the file that counts.
