Videos won't play on my MacBook air

Hello jennyjorm,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities!

We understand videos won't play on your Mac and we'd like to help.

Below are some troubleshooting steps for this particular issue that can help you to get those videos to play.

"When you access older video files in Photos on macOS Mojave (macOS 10.14), you may see an error message: "Cannot Play Video. Photos cannot play this video. Do you want to try opening it in QuickTime Player?"

Follow steps in this article to convert the video file. If you don’t convert your files ahead of time, they won’t be convertible or usable in future versions of macOS.

Convert media files in QuickTime Player

1. Open the Album section in the Photos sidebar.
2. Click Videos in the Media Types album.
3. Click a video in the album to play it. If the file is incompatible and you need to convert it, a message asks you to open the file in QuickTime Player. 
4. Click OK.
5. Wait while Quicktime converts the file. 
6. Click Save, which saves the file to your desktop.
7. Click Replace, when asked. This replaces the incompatible file.
8. Find the new file on your desktop and drag it into your Photos window."

If you can't play videos in Photos on your Mac

Let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

Take care!