What is the best video player for Mac?

There really isn't a single “best” Mac media player. I suggest you try out all of the ones listed below, and you'll figure out which one works best for you.

For Me recently, VLC Media Player is still the best overall choice on Mac.

• VLC: Free, supports almost every video format, handles subtitles well, and rarely needs extra codecs. The interface isn’t the prettiest, but it just works.
• IINA: Probably the best-looking Mac-native option. It feels more like a proper macOS app, supports modern features, and is great if you mostly watch local videos.
• Infuse: Best if you have a large movie/TV library. It has a beautiful interface, metadata fetching, and works well with network drives, but some features require a subscription.
• QuickTime Player: Fine for basic MP4/MOV files, but limited format support.

I’d use IINA for daily watching and keep VLC installed as a backup for any weird formats that don’t play.

That kinds of depends on what you want to actually play, but usually for the most supported formats and easiest to use I would highly recommend VLC Media Player from VideoLan.

https://www.videolan.org/

Otherwise, Mac's have the built-in Quicktime.

The downside of Quicktime for me is the lack of playback adjustment. VLC can advance/delay audio and can set the video saturation, contrast and brightness. It also plays DVDs and .iso copies of DVDs and quite a few video formats that Quicktime doesn't.

"Best" is a purely subjective term. One user's "best" is another user's "garbage".

Having said that, VLC is a very capable and popular player.

I get along fine with that and Apple's QuickTIme Player. Never need anything else.

“Best”? If you want “best”, ask some AI, as they always know “best”. Or if not, they’ll obsequiously provide a different “best”.

The built-in macOS video player works quite well, VLC deals well with many options and formats, and Plex, Jellyfin, and such can work well for other definitions of “best”.

And there are other options.

VLC is good but for me there is one significant problem . . . you can't fast forward or rewind using the JKL keys as you can with QuickTime Player.

Having said that, occasionally QT will refuse to play a video but VLC never fails.

So I use both.

VLC

well depend on what formats you wish to play

vlc support 100 times the formats that quicktime does

both are free and add free, and vlc don't take up much room so there really is no reason not

to have both

1. QuickTime Player ...and for old codecs and more options:
2. IINA
3. VLC

Select a video file in Finder. Right-click and select 'Get Info'

You can then select the default app for that file and then change the default to "use this app to open all documents like this one"

You have to do this for each type of file - e.g. mp4, m4v, iso, .... , etc.

How to change default video player: Mac user guide

more

macos make vlc default player - Google-

I can't give an accurate view because I've never removed it!

It doesn't come with an uninstaller app so it doesn't embed itself like some apps do. A quick search on my HD shows about a dozen plist and command line tool files and doesn't show any daemons, launchers or other hard-to-remove things. On that basis I'd guess it's just drag and drop plus a bit of manual deletion for those of us who are a bit OCD about the leftover crumbs of apps.