Quicktime only mov export

Question

Level 1

58 points

Quicktime only mov export

I recorded a Zoom session for people who could not make the meeting. It's 55 minutes. I want to share it with folks who couldn't attend. It's huge and I opened it in Quicktime Player and wanted to export as MP4 and 780 quality or something lesser than the highest quality. I do not have an export menu when I choose Export As. I can choose 1080 down to audio only. Only 1080 has a single option for compatibility or small size. The other options have no options. I can only save as an MOV. I do not have an option to keep the MP4 that is the current format.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Feb 20, 2025 7:46 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Urquhart1244

Level 10

144,244 points

Feb 22, 2025 8:41 AM in response to jayhawk

There is a lot to like about QuickTime, but downsizing media files is not one of them. To achieve respectable quality, Apple seems to default to encode using high bitrates, thus produce relatively large files.

Please use a different conversion app to do any downsizing. HandBrake seems to bring all the features that you need, and has handy presets. Other transcoders based on ffmpeg are also fine, but may require more learning.

The modern .mov files that Apple devices and QuickTime (v10 and later) produces, use the same formatting as .mp4. They are equivalent for 99% of use-cases, and you can rename the suffix at will without loosing any compatibility.

Reply

Answer 2

jayhawk Author

Level 1

58 points

Feb 22, 2025 6:15 AM in response to jayhawk

Is my Quicktime broken if there is no option to export as mp4 with compression setttings? Should I try a third-party option to save my mp4 video with a smaller size? Quicktime only saves as mov and the file size increases dramatically. I

Reply

Quick Links

Quicktime only mov export