Skip to content

TechDirectArchive

Hands-on IT, Cloud, Security, Veeam & DevOps

  • Home
  • About
  • Advertise With US
  • Reviews
  • Contact
  • Toggle search form

How to Set Quicktime or VLC as a default player on macOS

Posted on 05/01/201917/08/2026 Christian By Christian 2 Comments on How to Set Quicktime or VLC as a default player on macOS
  1. Home
  2. Mac
  3. How to Set Quicktime or VLC as a default player on macOS
An orange and yellow gradient background featuring a white traffic cone icon and a blue logo with the letter 'Q'.

For Mac users, QuickTime Player is the first choice since it is bundled with Mac OS X. For Windows users, it’s better to choose VLC Media Player. The main difference between the two players is iTunes movies. QuickTime Player can play iTunes M4V movies while VLC Media Player can’t play M4V movies directly. In this article, I will be showing you how to Set Quicktime or VLC as a default player on macOS. Please see How to record the screen of macOS, how to enable or disable automatic Live Caption on macOS through Chrome, how to Create and Mount Volume to Docker Container, and How to locate and edit the host file on macOS.

Set Default Player on Mac

Here, I will be setting the default player back to QuickTime. Here are some exciting articles: How to prevent VLC player from reverting to the native video size on Mac, and how to Create an S3 Bucket with Terraform.

Note: For VLC, this has to be installed previously before it can be seen here. Open The Finder Window and click on the Folder

  • Open the video you wish to play
  • Right-click on the Video, and
  • Select Get Info as shown below.
Screenshot of a file directory on a Mac showing video files related to ESXi networking components, with a focus on options to open the video file with VLC or QuickTime Player.

Under Open with, Select your desired player. Finally, Click on Change All. That is all 🙂

Note: This image was uploaded based on a comment below. This image here is just to show the Change All option I mentioned above.
Set Default Player option on Mac

I hope you found this blog post helpful on how to Set Quicktime or VLC as a default player on macOS. Please let me know in the comment section if you have any questions.q

Thank you for reading this post. Kindly share it with others.

  • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram
  • Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
Mac

Post navigation

Previous Post: AWS Command-Line Interface: How to configure AWS CLI [Part 1]
Next Post: Stop an application from starting up automatically on macOS

Related Posts

  • plain screenshot 1
    How to make a screenshot on a macOS device Mac
  • homebrew social card
    Package Manager for macOS: How to install Homebrew on macOS Mac
  • Mendeley Error Code ACLx80sr
    Fix Mendeley Cite Error has occurred: ECITE40001 (ac1x80sr) JIRA|Confluence|Apps
  • iOS Apps
    How to redeem App Store gift card or content codes on MacBook Pro Mac
  • Turn bluetooth on and off
    Unable to Turn Bluetooth On or Off on Mac Mac
  • sdadsf453423564
    How to download, install and activate, and uninstall IBM SPSS Statistics Mac

More Related Articles

plain screenshot 1 How to make a screenshot on a macOS device Mac
homebrew social card Package Manager for macOS: How to install Homebrew on macOS Mac
Mendeley Error Code ACLx80sr Fix Mendeley Cite Error has occurred: ECITE40001 (ac1x80sr) JIRA|Confluence|Apps
iOS Apps How to redeem App Store gift card or content codes on MacBook Pro Mac
Turn bluetooth on and off Unable to Turn Bluetooth On or Off on Mac Mac
sdadsf453423564 How to download, install and activate, and uninstall IBM SPSS Statistics Mac

Comments (2) on “How to Set Quicktime or VLC as a default player on macOS”

  1. Avatar photo Mike says:
    14/06/2023 at 7:05 PM

    the change all option is no longer there. Now it’s “always open with” and it doesn’t work, every time I download a new mp4 it reverts back to quicktime player as default player. I want VLC but apparently I am stuck with quicktime player as the default as no matter what I do it eventually reverts back

    Log in to Reply
    1. chris Christian says:
      14/06/2023 at 7:57 PM

      I just checked and the change-all option is still available. I am using Macbook Pro! What version of Mac are you using?

      • I have updated the image to reflect this step.
      Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Microsoft MVP

vexpert-badge-stars-5

Virtual Background

VEEAMLEGEND

Categories

veeaam100

Veeam Vanguard

  • dism failed errors windows thumbnail 1
    Error 0x800f0830: Discard the modified Image and start again, no operation was performed Windows Server
  • doc register profile 1
    How to Remove a profile on outlook Network | Monitoring
  • How to Convert a Distribution Group to a Security Group
    How to convert distribution group to security group Windows Server
  • How to fix CPU at 100 when nothing is running problem on Windows
    How to fix CPU at 100% when nothing is running problem on Windows Windows
  • Laptop battery performance report
    Windows Battery Report: Track down a malfunctioning laptop battery Windows
  • Free up filesystem root space
    How to fix the Filesystem root is running low on Disk space Virtualization
  • How to Restore Microsoft Authenticator App on a New Device
    How to fix “Action required” in Microsoft Authenticator App Microsoft Exchange/Office/365
  • Screenshot 2022 04 27 at 00.50.35
    How to create a BitLocker System Partition [Part 2] Windows

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,759 other subscribers
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments
  • About
  • Authors
  • Write for us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with us
  • General Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Feedly
  • Telegram
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • mastodon
  • Bsky

Tags

Active Directory Azure Bitlocker Microsoft Windows PowerShell WDS Windows 10 Windows 11 Windows Deployment Services Windows Server 2016

Copyright © 2026 TechDirectArchive

Loading Comments...

You must be logged in to post a comment.