How to Install Avidemux on Windows, macOS and Linux

Avidemux runs on Windows, macOS and most Linux distributions. The program ships as a single application with the editor, the filters and the encoders built in, so there is no separate codec pack to install. This guide walks through each platform and ends with a short check that confirms everything works.

Before you start

Avidemux is a 64-bit application. On Windows it needs Windows 10 or later; on macOS it runs on 10.13 and newer; on Linux it needs Qt 5 or Qt 6 libraries, which the package manager handles for you. A dedicated GPU is optional, but it enables hardware encoding on supported systems.

Windows

1. Download the Windows build from the download section or build it from the source archive.
2. Run the installer. The default options install the program for the current user and add a Start menu entry.
3. The portable build is a zip file instead of an installer. Extract it anywhere and start avidemux.exe.

Windows SmartScreen may ask for confirmation the first time because the build is not signed by a commercial certificate. Choose "More info" and then "Run anyway".

macOS

1. Download the .dmg image and open it.
2. Drag the Avidemux icon to the Applications folder.
3. On first launch, right-click the app and pick "Open" so Gatekeeper accepts it. This is only needed once.

Apple Silicon Macs run the Intel build through Rosetta 2. Encoding speed is fine for most work, but native builds compiled from source perform better on long jobs.

Linux

Most distributions carry Avidemux in their repositories or as an AppImage. The AppImage is the simplest path because it bundles every dependency.

# AppImage
chmod +x avidemux_2.8.1.appImage
./avidemux_2.8.1.appImage

# Debian / Ubuntu (if packaged by your distribution)
sudo apt install avidemux-qt

# Fedora (RPM Fusion)
sudo dnf install avidemux

Building from source

The source archive on this site contains the full project. Building takes 10 to 30 minutes depending on the machine and needs CMake, a C++ compiler, Qt development files and the usual multimedia libraries.

unzip avidemux2-master.zip && cd avidemux2-master
bash bootStrap.bash --with-system-ffmpeg   # Linux
# Windows: see cmake/README in the archive, uses MSYS2 or MSVC

Check the installation

Open the program, drag a short MP4 file into the window and press the play button under the preview. If the picture and sound play, the decoders are working. Next, open Video Output and confirm that encoders such as Mpeg4 AVC (x264) appear in the list. If the list is empty, the plugin folder was not found; reinstalling to the default location fixes this.