Open Windows Media or WMV Files

In this video, we’re going to look at how we can open up a WMV file on the Mac. A WMV file is a movie or an audio file that came from a PC – windows media file. When you double click on it to open it up on a Mac, it won’t open in most cases. Let’s see how we can open up these WMV files on a Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.

So I have this WMV file. This is a movie. If I were to double-click on it, let’s go ahead and double-click on it, you’re going to see it doesn’t open. This file is not compatible with the QuickTime player. So how do I open this WMV file? Well, all we need to do is download an application that will open it.

There are two really good applications that will open up this file. And the good news is they’re both free. One of them is VLC, and the other one is IINA, or at least that’s how I am going to pronounce it. You spell it I I N A. Let’s go open up my Safari here. I have two tabs open for both of the applications.

The first application is VLC Media Player. All you need to do is just download this and install it in your Applications folder. All applications should go into the Applications folder. You download videolan.org. I’ll have links down in the description. VLC has been around for several years, and it’s very popular.

Another option is IINA. This is a little newer and a little more modern. This is the one that I use, but it’s the same thing as VLC. What it can do is open up a WMV file.

Both of these applications can open up multiple file formats. That’s what’s nice about both of these applications. So again, you just download it and install it into your Applications folder. So I’ve done that. I’m going to hide Safari here, and now let’s go over to my Applications folder. I go up to Go, and then we go over to Applications. I have both of those applications. So here’s IINA, and when I go down to the bottom here, I have VLC.

So now, how do I tell that WMV file to open up in one of these apps? Well, all I need to do is just control-click on it. I hold down the control key, and I click, and then you’re going to see Open With, and then from here, I can select what I want to open it up with. So I can open it up with VLC, or I can open it up with IINA. So let’s go ahead and open this up, and there’s the video.

Now, if you want to have this type of file, this WMV file open up automatically in an app; let’s say I want it to always have it open up in IINA, which is really what I want to do, what I need to do is tell the Mac to open up all WMV files in that IINA. If you use VLC, you can also do the same thing with VLC. How do I do that? We just select it, I have this file selected, and then we go up to File in the menu bar, and then we go over to Get Info. This is where it can get information about that file.

One of the options that we have here is we can set what we want it to open up with. We can see it’s set to open up with QuickTime, which won’t open. I just need to just click on this and then select what I want to open it up with. If I want to use VLC, I can use VLC; if I want to use IINA, I use IINA. So I just select this. The next thing you want to do is click on Change All. When I click on Change All, it’s going to change all of the WMV files on my Mac; it will set all of them to open up in that application. So if I were to download another WMV file, or if someone were to give me a WMV file when I double click on it, it’ll open up in IINA because that’s what I have is set here, and I Changed All.

So now, when I close this, watch what happens when I double-click on this. It automatically opens up in IINA. If I were to download another file, it would open up in IINA as soon as I double click on it.

So that’s how we can tell our Mac to open up a WMV file. We need to do this through a third-party app. There are two really good solutions, VLC and IINA. VLC is a little older. It’s been around a little bit longer. IINA is a little newer and has a little more modern look, which is what I like. So I use IINA, but you did see that I have both of them installed on my Mac so that I can use either one.

Once you download the application, you just place it into your Applications folder and then do a Get Info on your WMV file. A window will open up, and from there, you can tell your Mac which application you want to use to open up that file. Make sure you click on Change All, so if you have newer files are other files of that same file type, in my case WMV, they will all open up in the app that you specify.

So that’s how you can open up a WMV file on the Mac.