Installing FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a tool to convert between various media formats. If you want to export video in MuseScore Studio, you must install FFmpeg's software libraries via a method outlined below.

Other methods of installing FFmpeg may not give you libraries that work in MuseScore Studio.

Windows

For testing purposes, you can download fmpeg-8.0.1-full_build-shared.7z from this website and extract it using 7-Zip. Once extracted, you should see a folder inside called bin (short for 'binary'). You need to tell MuseScore 4.7 where to find that folder in Preferences -> Video.

On Windows, you need to locate FFmpeg's bin folder. On other platforms, you need the lib folder.

macOS

For testing purposes, we're using the Homebrew vesion of FFmpeg. This is not the version we will use for the final release. If you're not comfortable with using the command line, we recommend waiting for the final release.

If you want to proceed, open Terminal and paste this command to install Homebrew (aka brew):

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Press Enter to run the command. The installer needs to copy files to a system location, so it will prompt for your macOS password. Type your password then press Enter again.

When you type your password, no characters will appear in Terminal, not even asterisks (****).

Once Homebrew has finished installing, paste the commands for your Mac and press Enter:

# APPLE SILICON MACS: Add brew to PATH (not necessary on Intel Macs)
[ ! -r /opt/homebrew ] || echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >>~/.zprofile
source ~/.zprofile

# ALL MACS: Intel & Apple Silicon
brew install ffmpeg

Currently, this gives you a version of FFmpeg and its libraries that work for video export. However, if Homebrew update their version in the future, it may no longer work in MuseScore Studio, hence we will not recommend this method for the final release.

Linux

You can install FFmpeg from your distribution and MuseScore 4.7 should find it automatically.

Use the command for your distribution's package manager:

sudo apt install ffmpeg  # Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives.
sudo pacman -Syu ffmpeg  # Arch, Manjaro, and derivatives.

On Fedora, Redhat, CentOS, and derivatives you must install the RPM Fusion repository then run:

sudo dnf install ffmpeg