Manatee
Best Video Repair Software for Mac in 2026: 6 Options Compared
Start by finding out whether the video is broken at all: if VLC plays a file QuickTime Player refuses, the file is probably fine and needs converting, not repairing. If it really is damaged and you’re comfortable in Terminal, untrunc is free and rebuilds truncated MP4 and MOV files from a healthy clip shot on the same camera. If you want an app, Manatee lets you preview the repair free and costs $9 once to save it, and nothing is uploaded. For badly damaged camera footage, Stellar Repair for Video and Wondershare Repairit both have a sample-file mode that borrows structure from a working clip, and they cost more.
One rule before any of them: copy the broken file to your Mac’s internal drive and work on the copy. Never run a repair against the only copy sitting on a memory card.
The sections below cover what each option is good at, where it falls short, and what it costs. Prices are as listed on each developer’s own site or App Store page at the time of writing (October 2026). Manatee is ours; we’ve given it the same treatment as the others, limits included.
What to look for in video repair software
A free look before you pay. Every paid tool here lets you see some of the result first. How much varies a lot, from a partial preview to the whole file, and that matters when you’re deciding whether $50 or more is worth it.
Whether your video leaves the Mac. A desktop app works on the file where it is. An online repair service means uploading it, which can be slow for a large file and is a privacy question for footage of your family.
A sample-file mode. When a recording stopped before the camera finished writing it, the file is missing the index that says where every frame is. Some tools can rebuild it using a healthy video from the same camera as a template. If your file is that badly damaged, this is the feature that matters.
How you pay. One-time, yearly, monthly. For a single broken video, a monthly plan you remember to cancel can cost less than a lifetime license; for regular camera work, the reverse.
Honesty about outcomes. No software can invent data that was never written. A tool that says how much came back is more useful than one that says “repaired” and leaves you to find the gap.
1. QuickTime Player and VLC: check before you repair
QuickTime Player is built into macOS. VLC is a free, open source player that, in its own words, “plays most multimedia files.” Neither repairs anything, but together they answer the first question: is the file damaged, or is it a format QuickTime can’t decode? If VLC plays it normally, you have a codec problem, and the fix is a conversion. How to check whether a video file is corrupted walks through the checks.
Good at: costing nothing and taking a minute. They can save you from buying a repair tool for a file that isn’t broken.
Falls short: playing isn’t repairing. Even when VLC gets through a damaged file, the file stays as it was, and Photos, iMovie or an upload form will still reject it.
Price: free. VLC runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs.
2. untrunc: free and open source, for Terminal users
untrunc restores truncated MP4, M4V, MOV and 3GP files, the classic result of a camera whose battery died mid-recording. You give it the broken file plus another video that isn’t broken, ideally from the same camera, and it rebuilds the missing structure from that reference. This fork also lists GoPro and Sony XAVC support.
Good at: the hardest common case, a recording cut off before its index was written, for free. It’s licensed under GPL-2.0.
Falls short: on a Mac it’s a build-it-yourself tool. The project gives two routes: install its dependencies with Homebrew and compile it, or run it in Docker. Prebuilt downloads are offered for Windows, not macOS. There’s an optional GUI, but it’s also something you build. It handles only those four formats, and without a good reference clip from the same device it has little to work with.
Price: free; the developer accepts donations.
3. Manatee: preview free, $9 once to save
Manatee is ours. Drop a damaged video onto its window, its menu bar icon, or right-click it in Finder and choose Fix with Manatee. It reads what survived and writes a new file beside the original; the original is never moved, overwritten or deleted. For a video the result is either a playable copy or a message that the file could not be read; for PDFs and archives it also says how much came back.
Good at: getting a damaged video playable again without uploading it, for a one-time price you’ll find low next to the others here. For an MP4, MOV or MKV that ffmpeg can still open, it writes a new MP4 with a fresh index, copying the frames as they are or re-encoding them when it must. It isn’t only for video: the same app repairs PDFs (34 of 41 pages, and it says which), rebuilds ZIP, DOCX, XLSX and EPUB files from the entries still on disk, and fixes subtitle encodings and timings. It also converts, shrinks files to a size limit you name, and strips location and camera data. The repair engine (ffmpeg) is bundled in the download, so nothing is fetched later. No account, no analytics.
Falls short: it works from the damaged file alone. It has no sample-file mode and cannot rebuild a missing index, so a recording cut off before the camera wrote its index is out of its reach; untrunc and the sample-file modes of Stellar and Repairit are built for that case. It’s Mac only, the download is about 100 MB because of that bundled engine, and it can’t bring back bytes that were never written. It isn’t an undelete tool, so a video you deleted from a card is a job for recovery software, and it isn’t a video editor.
Pick something else if: the footage was cut off mid-recording, before the camera wrote its index (try untrunc or a sample-file mode), you need to recover deleted files rather than repair existing ones, or you need the same tool on Windows.
Price: $9 once, lifetime license with updates, on every Mac you own. Every fix can be previewed free with no card and no account; the license saves it. macOS 12 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.
4. Stellar Repair for Video: sample-file repair, licensed by the year
Stellar Repair for Video has Mac and Windows versions. It lists AVI, ASF, WMV, MKV, FLV, DivX, WebM, MJPEG, MPEG, AVCHD, MTS, MOV, MP4, M4V, 3G2, 3GP and F4V among its formats, plus ProRes and HEVC. Its Advanced Repair uses a “sample file”, a working video from the same device and in the same format, to repair severely damaged ones.
Good at: severe damage, thanks to the sample-file mode, and batches of files at once. It supports macOS 11 Big Sur through macOS 27, on Intel and Apple silicon.
Falls short: the free download previews repaired files up to 20% of the video’s size; saving needs the full version. Licenses run for one or two years rather than once. Higher editions add more: Professional adds photo repair, and Premium adds recovery of deleted photos and other media. Stellar also offers a separate online repair service, which means uploading the file.
Price: Standard, Professional and Premium editions, each as a one-year or two-year license for an individual. Its store shows prices in your local currency, so check the figure for your country on its buy page.
5. Wondershare Repairit: monthly, yearly or perpetual
Wondershare Repairit is a repair suite with separate Mac plans for video, photos, files and audio. For video it offers a Quick Repair and an Advanced Repair that, like Stellar’s, uses a sample video shot on the same device.
Good at: flexible pricing. A monthly plan suits a one-off job, as long as you cancel it afterwards, and there’s a sample-file mode for the worst damage.
Falls short: the trial repairs your video and shows a preview of parts of it; to preview the whole file and save it, you buy. The monthly and yearly plans renew automatically until you cancel. The perpetual license covers the version you bought and its minor updates, not future major versions. All three Mac video plans list “Professional Mode” as excluded. Wondershare also runs a browser-based repair, which means uploading the file.
Price: for the Mac video repair plan, $39.99 a month, $49.99 a year, or $69.99 perpetual, from its Mac pricing page.
6. EaseUS Fixo: video, photos and documents in one
EaseUS Fixo is on the Mac App Store and covers three kinds of repair: video (MOV, MP4, M4V and other formats), photos (JPEG, PNG and TIFF, with AI sharpening), and documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF). It offers a preview before saving and a batch mode.
Good at: covering video, photos and documents in one Mac app, bought through the App Store.
Falls short: its listing doesn’t spell out what the free download does before you pay, so expect to try it to find out. It’s priced as a subscription unless you choose the lifetime option. Its App Store listing doesn’t mention a sample-file mode.
Price: free download with in-app purchases of $19.99 a month, $59.99 a year, or $69.99 lifetime. Needs macOS 11 or later.
Comparison at a glance
| Option | Price | Free before you pay | Sample-file mode | Where it runs | Also repairs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuickTime and VLC | Free | Everything (players only) | No | On your Mac | Nothing; diagnosis only |
| untrunc | Free (GPL-2.0) | Everything | Yes, required | On your Mac, Terminal or Docker | Nothing else; MP4, M4V, MOV, 3GP |
| Manatee | $9 once | Preview of every fix | No | On your Mac, nothing uploaded | PDF, ZIP, DOCX, XLSX, EPUB, subtitles |
| Stellar Repair for Video | 1- or 2-year license, priced by country | Preview up to 20% of the video | Yes | Desktop app; separate online service | Photos (Professional), deleted media recovery (Premium) |
| Wondershare Repairit | $39.99/month, $49.99/year, $69.99 perpetual | Preview of parts of the video | Yes | Desktop app; separate online version | Separate plans for photos, files, audio |
| EaseUS Fixo | $19.99/month, $59.99/year, $69.99 lifetime | Not stated on its listing | Not on its listing | Mac app (App Store) | Photos, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF |
Which one to pick
You’re not sure the file is broken. QuickTime and VLC first. If anything plays it, convert it instead. Container vs codec explains why an intact MP4 can still refuse to play.
A video that still has its index plays wrong, such as a cut-off download or one showing the wrong length, and you’d rather not upload it. Manatee. Preview the result free, and pay $9 only if it’s worth saving. The same license covers PDFs and Office files later. How to repair a corrupted MP4 shows the steps.
Camera footage cut off mid-recording, and you can use Terminal. untrunc, with a healthy clip from the same camera.
Camera footage cut off mid-recording, and you want an app. Stellar or Repairit, for their sample-file modes. Repairit’s monthly plan suits a single job if you cancel it; Stellar’s licenses run for one or two years.
Videos, photos and documents, all through the App Store. EaseUS Fixo.
Questions
Can I repair a corrupted video on a Mac for free? Sometimes. untrunc is free and handles truncated MP4, M4V, MOV and 3GP files if you can build it and have a healthy reference clip. VLC is free but only plays files; it doesn’t fix them. The paid apps here all show some of the result free, so you can see whether the repair works before paying.
Do video repair apps upload my video? The desktop apps covered here work on your Mac. Stellar and Wondershare also run online repair services, and those mean uploading the file. Manatee never uploads anything: the repair runs on your Mac, and its only network requests are the license check and the update check.
What is a sample file in video repair? A healthy video recorded on the same camera or phone, in the same format, as the broken one. Tools with a sample-file mode (untrunc, Stellar’s Advanced Repair, Repairit’s Advanced Repair) use it as a template to rebuild the structure the broken file lost. It helps most when a recording stopped before the camera finished writing it.
Why did the repair give me back only part of my video? Because only part of it was in the file. If a recording, copy or download stopped early, the rest was never written, and no software can invent it. A partial result that plays is a real outcome; it’s worth checking the file size against what the full recording should be before trying more tools.