QuickTime Player
Ranked 13 of 38 music players by recommenders
Free Apple media player praised for fast, simple playback and trimming without conversion. Critics say its skeuomorphic interface is clunky and codec support is weak.
Free Apple media player praised for fast, simple playback and trimming without conversion. Critics say its skeuomorphic interface is clunky and codec support is weak.
38 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 47%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fast, responsive playback and scrubbing
“QuickTime is fine. It does the basics, is intuitive, and fast.”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Windows 11 New Media Player Uses 3.5x More RAM, Charges for Popular Video Codecs” “QT is so much faster than anything else.”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support” “QuickTime Player (AVFoundation) can scrub around in realtime”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support” Pioneered digital video and media
“It made video playback available to systems without accelerator cards, allowed for synchronous DV import and more.”
Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “Rank the 50 best Apple products” “QuickTime pioneered digital video and audio before open media standards were ubiquitous”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support” “QuickTime, when new, was at the forefront of mass-market digital media.”
Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “Rank the 50 best Apple products” Trimming and camera capture without conversion
“You can trim a video in Quicktime or Photos which directly manipulates the file.”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)” “quicktime for ingesting firewire feed from camera”
Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Free the Icons” “which was leaner. Original file, no conversion.”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support” Simple, expected menus, right tool
“which has the expected menu items”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)” “that's the right tool for the job”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Clunky skeuomorphic controls and UI
“Even in the Steve Jobs era Apple produced some real stinkers of a UI, achingly beautiful but a right pain to use.”
Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000” “The poster boy for that is the old QuickTime Player, which had a volume wheel and a drawer for shortcuts.”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11” “implement a Blackberry style thumbwheel as the volume control in the Quicktime Player”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “macOS Tahoe windows have different corner radiuses” - Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items”
- Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11”
Poor codec and format support
“If you tried using QuickTime or MPEG-4 containers, you'd have to rely on hacks”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “MPEG-2 Transport Stream Packaging for Media over QUIC Transport” “macOS (QuickTime/Preview, iMovie) can't read .mp4 files”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Ez FFmpeg – Video editing in plain English” “the codec support was pretty bad last time I checked”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Windows 11 New Media Player Uses 3.5x More RAM, Charges for Popular Video Codecs” Features removed or paywalled
“Pitch is still missing though.”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Killed by Apple” “the feature was first paywalled as QuickTime Pro, then removed altogether”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support” “They removed the speed and pitch adjuster in QuickTime player”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Killed by Apple” Awkward screen and audio recording
“QuickTime cannot record system audio output without shenanigans.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “OBS Studio Gets a New Renderer” “I've had a lot of issues using the QuickTime screen recorder”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “OBS Studio Gets a New Renderer” “the shortcut to stop screen recording on QuickTime sucks”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “OBS Studio Gets a New Renderer”
Other music players people recommend
The four most recommended other music players, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VLC media player | 172 | 83 | 67% | 12 | 20 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| mpv media player | 82 | 12 | 87% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Infuse video player | 78 | 11 | 88% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Kodi | 64 | 38 | 63% | 12 | 15 yrs3 owners | — |
| QuickTime PlayerThis page | 18 | 20 | 47% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 42 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The poster boy for that is the old QuickTime Player, which had a volume wheel and a drawer for shortcuts.”
“user-hostile skeuomorphism like the brushed metal QuickTime Player”
“why does Apple name things so wrong”
“iTunes and Quicktime were never half as scummy as their modern counterparts are.”
“You can trim a video in Quicktime or Photos which directly manipulates the file.”
“that's the right tool for the job”
“which has the expected menu items”
“quicktime for ingesting firewire feed from camera”
“the codec support was pretty bad last time I checked”
“QuickTime is fine. It does the basics, is intuitive, and fast.”
“Even in the Steve Jobs era Apple produced some real stinkers of a UI, achingly beautiful but a right pain to use.”
“you had to adjust the volume by clicking the edge of a volume wheel and dragging it”
“I have configured all music files to be opened with quicktime player.”
“Pitch is still missing though.”
“They removed the speed and pitch adjuster in QuickTime player”
“If you tried using QuickTime or MPEG-4 containers, you'd have to rely on hacks”
“with a lacking Quicktime X and Final Cut X”
“Even the OS vendors couldn't help themselves sometimes”
“It made video playback available to systems without accelerator cards, allowed for synchronous DV import and more.”
“QuickTime, when new, was at the forefront of mass-market digital media.”
“QuickTime and FaceTime are useful but I never thought of them as especially innovative.”
“A dial that you had to use a mouse to use.”
“implement a Blackberry style thumbwheel as the volume control in the Quicktime Player”
“odds are the fucking play/pause button is going to block it and it won't fade away if the video is paused.”
“stuff like DCOM, OpenDoc, QuickTime, DirectMusic and so on”
“macOS (QuickTime/Preview, iMovie) can't read .mp4 files”
“the shortcut to stop screen recording on QuickTime sucks”
“I've had a lot of issues using the QuickTime screen recorder”
“QuickTime cannot record system audio output without shenanigans.”
“How are you supposed to know that Quicktime is the less intrusive option?”
“which was a piece of garbage”
“QT is so much faster than anything else.”
“QuickTime Player (AVFoundation) can scrub around in realtime”
“QT was NOT user-friendly nor cross-platform-friendly at the height of its popularity.”
“even QuickTime 1.0 did this perfectly”
“QuickTime pioneered digital video and audio before open media standards were ubiquitous”
“the feature was first paywalled as QuickTime Pro, then removed altogether”
“was a proprietary nightmare that didn’t even work correctly across Apple products”
“which was leaner. Original file, no conversion.”
“yes, videos get OCR'd too!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.