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HandBrake

The HandBrake Team Multimedia Open source

The free video converter to shrink a video or turn it into MP4 or MKV.

Official links only, checked on September 30, 2026

Table of contents
  1. What HandBrake is for
  2. Who is it for?
  3. Download HandBrake safely

HandBrake was started in 2003 and is now maintained by a team of volunteers. It does one thing, converting videos, and does it very well.

What HandBrake is for

Reducing the size of a video filmed on a phone before sending it, converting a file so it plays on a TV or a tablet, or encoding several videos at once with the same settings. The presets are enough in most cases.

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Who is it for?

Anyone who handles videos often: creators, teachers, parents archiving family films. Advanced settings stay available for experts.

Download HandBrake safely

The official site is handbrake.fr. The team points out that there is no official HandBrake app for Android or iPhone: apps with that name in the stores have nothing to do with the project.

Our opinion

We like

  • Free and open source
  • Ready-made presets for phones, tablets and the web
  • Hardware encoding (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Apple) for speed
  • Batch conversion of several videos

We like less

  • Does not read copy-protected DVDs and Blu-rays
  • Technical vocabulary for manual settings

Technical sheet

PublisherThe HandBrake Team
LicenceOpen source
PriceFree
PlatformsWindows, macOS, Linux

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Jean Mathieu

Written by

Jean Mathieu

An engineer and passionate web writer since 2018, I combine technical expertise with a love for writing to share practical insights, news, and tips with the community.