mpv is a free, open-source media player that its website describes as “a free (as in freedom) media player for the command line”. It supports a wide range of file formats, codecs and subtitle types, offers scripting, GPU video decoding and high-quality video output (including HDR), and has no real GUI beyond a small on-screen controller. The latest stable release is v0.41.0, published on December 21, 2025.
Who it suits
People who like a minimal player they can tune and script, and developers who want an embeddable player. If you want menus and buttons for everything, a conventional player such as MPC-HC will feel friendlier.
Official versus third-party builds
This is the important part. mpv.io’s installation page says that for Windows and macOS, “all binary packages are unofficial third-party builds, except as noted”. The noted exception is the first-party builds made by GitHub CI, attached to each release on GitHub. The release notes add that these builds are “reasonably useful” but don’t include everything mpv supports; for example, there is no encoding support.
- Windows and Mac: first-party zips on the mpv GitHub release page. mpv.io also lists popular third-party Windows builds (such as shinchiro’s) for people who want extra features; they are not made by the mpv team.
- Linux: mpv.io warns that distributions often package outdated versions and recommends the mpv-build scripts or up-to-date packages. All listed Linux packages are unofficial.
- Android: mpv.io links to mpv-android on Google Play, a separate app based on mpv.
Price and licence
mpv is free. It is licensed under the GPL version 2 or later by default; builds made without GPL-only parts can be LGPL 2.1 or later.
Verify your download
The SHA-256 values below come from the v0.41.0 GitHub release. On Windows, check a file with Get-FileHash .\mpv-v0.41.0-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip. The zips contain the player itself; there is no installer. Version 0.41.0 adds built-in mpv-register and mpv-unregister helpers to register mpv as a media app on Windows.
Questions
Which Windows zip should I pick?
For most 64-bit PCs, the x86_64 MSVC or MinGW build; use aarch64 on Windows on ARM and i686 only on 32-bit Windows.
Can I install mpv with winget?
The winget package commonly used for mpv is the third-party shinchiro build, not the first-party release, so we don’t list it as official.
Does mpv have an iPhone app?
mpv.io’s installation page does not list one.
