Convert MOV to AVI QuickTime Movie ↔ Audio Video Interleave Free Online Secure
Your MOV is opened here in your browser and its picture and sound are moved into an AVI container. When AVI accepts what was inside — which it usually does — nothing is re-encoded, so nothing is lost and it takes seconds.
Convert your file
Drop a MOV here, or choose one.
Your file never leaves this device. Everything runs in your browser.
Nothing uploaded
Where these formats come from
AVI is Microsoft's container from 1992, built when video was something you played from a CD-ROM. MOV is Apple's, a year older, and it was so well designed that the MP4 format the whole world now uses was built directly on it. FLV was Macromedia's, later Adobe's: it carried almost all internet video for a decade and disappeared with Flash at the end of 2020. The word that matters here is container. None of these three is a way of compressing video; each is a box that holds video compressed by something else, alongside the sound and the subtitles. That distinction explains most of the surprises on this page.
Where you meet them
AVI survives in old camera footage, in archives and in software that was written in the nineties and never replaced. MOV comes out of iPhones and Macs and is the working format of a great deal of video editing. FLV is almost entirely a legacy: files downloaded or recorded before 2020 that nothing modern will open. Converting between them is usually about making an old recording playable again, or handing a file to a program that insists on one particular box.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a container and a codec?
The container is the box — AVI, MOV, MP4 — and the codec is how the pictures inside were compressed — H.264, MPEG-4, and others. A file called .avi tells you almost nothing about what is inside it. This is why one AVI plays and another does not, although both have the same extension: the player understands the box but not the codec within. It is also why converting between containers is sometimes instant and sometimes slow — in the first case only the box is being changed.
Why won't my old FLV files play any more?
Because the software that played them was Flash, and Flash was switched off at the end of 2020 and removed from every browser. The files themselves are intact; what has gone is the thing that knew how to open them. Converting to a modern container is the way to get them back, and it is worth doing before the tools that still understand FLV become scarce as well.
Does the file lose quality?
It depends on what the two formats can hold. Converting between formats that store the same thing — a PNG to a BMP, a WAV to a FLAC — loses nothing. Converting into a format that throws information away to save space, such as JPEG or MP3, loses a little every time, and converting back does not bring it back. Where a choice exists, this page errs towards keeping the original quality rather than making the smallest file.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. The conversion happens inside your browser, on your own machine; the file never leaves it and there is no server here that could receive it. That is why a large file is limited by your own memory rather than by an upload, and why nothing you convert can appear in anybody's logs — including ours. The audio and video tools do fetch their conversion engine from this site the first time you use them, some thirty megabytes once; after that the work still happens entirely on your machine.
Why people convert MOV to AVI
MOV is the format of videos shot on an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac, and of footage made with many cameras and editing programs. It works beautifully inside the Apple world. Outside it, things get less certain: older televisions that read video from a stick, projectors, car entertainment systems, some Windows programs and some online forms do not recognise it. AVI is one of the most widely read video formats of all, and almost every player, editor and device can open it. That is why people convert MOV to AVI: they have a video that works on one kind of equipment and they need it to work on another.
The situations are everyday ones. A clip filmed on an iPhone to show on a television that reads only AVI. A recording to hand to a colleague whose Windows program rejects MOV. A video for an older projector in a meeting room. A film for a player in a car. In each case the picture and sound are fine, and the container is the problem. Converting MOV to AVI changes the container, and in many cases leaves the contents untouched.
This page converts MOV to AVI in your browser. Your video is not uploaded to a server, which matters for family footage and private recordings. Below you will find how the conversion works, why it is often so quick, when it is not and what to know about the converter itself.
How the conversion works
The container is rewritten, not the video
A video file has two layers. Inside are the picture and the sound, each stored in a particular coded form. Around them is a container, such as MOV or AVI, which holds the two together and tells a player how to play them. Here, your MOV is opened in your browser and its picture and sound are moved into an AVI container. When AVI accepts what was inside, which it usually does, nothing is re-encoded, so nothing is lost and it takes seconds.
Why it is so fast
Because nothing needs to be re-encoded, the work is little more than copying. Re-encoding is slow; copying into a new container is quick. A film of an hour can be moved in seconds, because the converter does not touch the pictures, only their packaging.
What a phone video holds
Recent phones record video with modern, efficient compression. AVI is an old container, built in an era of simpler methods, so it does not always accept such contents as they are. When it cannot, the converter re-encodes into a form AVI does accept. You will notice it from the longer time the job takes, and from the file size, which may change.
What is kept
The picture and the sound exactly as they were
When you convert MOV to AVI here, the picture and the sound are kept exactly as they were, whenever the destination accepts them. The video is not recompressed, softened or resized. What you see in the AVI is what was in the MOV, frame for frame.
Length, frame size and frame rate
The length, the frame size and the frame rate are untouched. A clip of ten minutes stays ten minutes, a picture of 1920 by 1080 stays 1920 by 1080, and the movement stays at its original speed.
What may cost you something
When AVI will not take what the MOV held
Sometimes AVI will not accept the coded form of the picture or sound that the MOV contains. In that case, the video is re-encoded, which means decoded and compressed again in a form AVI accepts. Re-encoding always costs a little quality, and it takes longer than simply moving the contents. The converter handles it automatically, but it explains why some conversions take seconds and others minutes.
Subtitles and chapter marks
Subtitles and chapter marks are not carried over. If your MOV has subtitle tracks or chapter markers, the AVI will have the picture and sound but not those extras. Keep the original if you need them.
The converter is fetched the first time
The converter itself is not part of the page. It is fetched the first time you use one of these video pages, about nine megabytes, once. After that it stays in your browser, and later conversions start straight away. On a slow connection the first use takes longer, and offline you must have loaded it once before.
Long films on phones
Everything runs on your own device, so a long film on a phone may run out of memory before it finishes. Modern phone videos can be large, a gigabyte or more for a long recording. If that happens, try on a computer, or cut the video into shorter parts first.
How to convert MOV to AVI here
Add your video
Drop the MOV onto the page or pick it from your device. It is opened inside your browser and is not uploaded.
Let it finish
Press the button. If the contents can simply be moved, it takes seconds. If they must be re-encoded, it takes longer. Leave the page open until it is done.
Download and check
Download the AVI and open it in the player or on the device you need it for. Watch the beginning, a bit from the middle and the end. Check that sound and picture stay together and that the length is the same.
Questions people ask before converting
Will the quality drop?
Usually not. When AVI accepts what the MOV held, nothing is re-encoded. If re-encoding is needed, a little quality is given up.
Why did it take only a few seconds?
Because only the container was rewritten, not the video itself.
Will my television play the AVI?
AVI is widely supported, but a television reads AVI files with particular codecs inside. If the MOV held a codec the television does not know, it may not play. Try a short clip first.
Is my video uploaded?
No. Everything runs in your browser and the video never leaves your device.
Who converts MOV to AVI
iPhone users sharing with others
Videos from an iPhone become playable on televisions and Windows programs that do not like MOV.
People preparing videos for older equipment
Projectors, car systems and media players often read AVI from a stick and little else.
Anyone filling in a form or sending to a colleague
Some systems accept AVI and reject MOV. Converting gets the clip through.
Common mistakes
Deleting the original
Keep the MOV until you have checked the AVI on the equipment that matters.
Converting in chains
Each re-encode costs quality. Convert once from the original.
Closing the page too soon
A long film takes time. Leave the page open until the download is ready.
A closer look at MOV and AVI
Where the two formats come from
MOV was created by Apple for QuickTime, the technology that played video on Macs long before video became a common thing on the web. AVI came from Microsoft, in the early nineties, as the container for video on Windows. For years the two lived on opposite sides of a fence, and a file from one side was a nuisance on the other. The fence has mostly come down, but plenty of equipment still sits on one side of it, which is why a job like convert MOV to AVI keeps coming up.
The difference matters in practice. A MOV from a phone is built for modern players: it expects a fast processor, current codecs and software that is updated often. An AVI is built for the opposite: it was designed in an era when a computer decoded video with whatever it had, so almost every device made in the last twenty-five years has some idea how to open it. When you convert MOV to AVI, you are trading a little modernity for a lot of reach.
What a container does and does not do
It is worth saying again, because it is the key to understanding this page. The container does not decide how good a video looks. The coded form of the picture decides that, along with the bitrate it was recorded at. The container only keeps things in order: here is the picture, here is the sound, here is how they line up in time. When you convert MOV to AVI and the contents can be moved as they are, the quality cannot change, because the part that decides quality was never touched.
Why sound and picture sometimes drift apart
Now and then a converted video seems to lose its sync, with the voices a fraction of a second away from the lips. This usually comes from variable frame rates, which phones use to save space when little is moving. Old players that expect a steady rate can get confused. If you notice this in the AVI, check the same video in a different player before blaming the file, because some players are simply less forgiving than others.
Choosing the right moment to convert
Convert for the destination, not in advance
The best habit is to convert MOV to AVI when you have a particular destination in mind, and not to convert a whole library on the chance that it may be useful. Each file you convert is another file to keep track of, and every one that was re-encoded has lost a little. Keep your MOV originals as the masters and make an AVI only when a specific television, projector or program needs one.
Test with a short piece first
If you are unsure whether the target device will like the result, do not start with the full film. Cut a short stretch, convert it, copy it to the stick and try it on the real equipment. A minute of video tells you everything a full hour would, and costs you almost no time. If it plays, convert the rest with confidence. If it does not, you have saved yourself a long wait.
Think about file size
An AVI is often larger than the MOV it came from, particularly when the picture had to be re-encoded with an older, less efficient method. Check that the stick or the disk has room for it. A film of an hour in high definition can easily grow to several gigabytes, and a stick that looks big enough on paper can turn out too small once the real file is written.
Common situations in detail
The family television that reads only a stick
Many televisions that are ten or fifteen years old have a USB socket and a short list of formats they know. AVI is on that list almost every time, MOV much less often. To show an iPhone video there, convert MOV to AVI, copy the result to the stick and plug it in. If the picture does not appear, the television may not understand the coded form inside, and a different resolution or a shorter clip is worth a try.
The meeting room projector
Projectors in schools, churches and small offices tend to be bought once and used for decades. They play what they were made to play, and that is often AVI. A recording of a ceremony, a lesson or a presentation will go through more reliably in that format than in the original, so convert MOV to AVI the day before and test it on the actual projector, not on your own laptop.
Old editing software
Video editors from the 2000s, and some free ones that are still in use, open AVI without complaint and stumble on MOV. If you need to trim a clip filmed on a phone in one of them, an AVI saves a lot of trouble. When the editing is done, export in the format you actually want to keep, and treat the AVI as a working copy.
Forms, platforms and mail
Some upload forms, internal company systems and e-mail gateways have a list of allowed file types, and it does not always include MOV. A video that bounces from such a system can often be sent as an AVI. Check the size limit as well, because these systems are often stricter about it than the format.
Privacy and handling
Why local conversion matters for video
Video is among the most personal things we keep on our devices. It holds faces, voices, rooms, children and conversations. Many online converters ask you to upload the file to a server, wait while it is processed and then download the result, and in that time a copy of your video sits on someone else's machine. Here, the work is done by your own browser, so the video does not leave your device. There is nothing to delete afterwards, and no account to create.
What happens to the file after you leave
When you close the page, the converted video is gone from the browser, so download it before you do. The converter itself, the program of about nine megabytes, stays in your browser's storage so that the next conversion starts faster. Your videos are never kept.
If something goes wrong
The conversion stops or the page freezes
This most often means the device ran out of memory, which happens with long or very large videos, especially on phones. Close other tabs and applications and try again, or move to a computer. Cutting the video into two halves and converting each separately also works.
The AVI will not play
Try another player on the same device first. If it still does not play, the device may not support the coded form inside the AVI. A shorter test clip, or a lower resolution in the original, may help. Keep the MOV, because you can always try again from it.
There is no sound, or the sound is out of step
Open the original MOV and check that it has sound at all. If it does, try the AVI in a second player, since some players mishandle certain audio. If the problem remains, convert the sound separately: tools such as M4A to MP3 or OGG to MP3 can help when the audio track is the troublesome part.
Other conversions that often go with this one
Someone who needs to convert MOV to AVI often needs a few related jobs as well. Sound for a car or a small player may be best as FLAC to MP3, and MP3 to WAV prepares audio for editing programs that dislike compressed files. Together with this page, these cover most of what an old collection or a mixed set of devices demands.
A short checklist
Before converting
Know where the AVI will be played. Check the free space on the stick. Keep the MOV safe.
While converting
Stay on the page. Do not start other heavy tasks on a phone. Expect a longer wait if the picture has to be re-encoded.
After converting
Download the file, play it from start to end on the real equipment and only then decide whether you need the original MOV. Most people keep it.
Final thoughts
The idea behind a good way to convert MOV to AVI is modest. Do as little as possible to the video, keep everything on your own device and tell you plainly when quality is at stake. The page moves the contents into the new container where that is possible, re-encodes only when it must and leaves the choice of what to keep in your hands. Use it for the television, the projector, the old editor or the form that insists on AVI, and keep your MOV originals as the masters.
Related tools
To go the other way, convert AVI to MOV. For Flash-era clips, FLV to AVI and FLV to MOV work in the same way, and MOV to FLV and AVI to FLV cover the last pairings, though FLV is a dead format. For the sound alone, M4A to MP3 and WAV to MP3 change the audio format.
Your video stays on your device
The conversion happens locally. Your video is opened by your own browser, moved into a new container there and handed back. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no copy on a server and no one else who could watch it. For family footage and private recordings, that is the safe way to convert MOV to AVI.
A worked example
Say you filmed your daughter's school concert on your iPhone, a MOV of 600 megabytes, and you want to show it on a television that reads video from a USB stick but only in AVI. You drop the file here and press the button. A few minutes later, because the picture needed re-encoding, you download an AVI of about 700 megabytes, with the same length and the same sound. You copy it to the stick, plug it into the television and it plays. The MOV stays on your phone.
Before you close the page
Check that you downloaded the AVI, that it plays in the program or on the device where you need it, and that you kept the original MOV.
Summary
To convert MOV to AVI here, drop the video and press the button. The picture and sound are moved into an AVI container, and when AVI accepts what was inside, which it usually does, nothing is re-encoded, so nothing is lost and it takes seconds. Length, frame size and frame rate are untouched. Where AVI will not take what the MOV held, the video is re-encoded, which costs a little quality. The converter is fetched the first time, about nine megabytes, once. Nothing leaves your device.