How to install FFmpeg on Windows

How to install FFmpeg on Windows

FFmpeg is a free software, and a multi-platform solution for video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. It is a terminal software, but there are graphical options like QwinFF, Avanti, FFmpegYAG or Axiom. This time I will show you how you can install this software on Windows.

Intallation

Download

Download the correct version for your Operation System, in this case, we need to click on Windows with your respective architecture:
https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

Download FFmpeg Windows

Extract and move files

Extract the files and rename the extracted folder to FFmpeg, copy or cut this folder, paste it to the location that you want to have the files it could be your hard drive C:\ or another folder like C:\Program Files.

FFmpeg Windows Path

Add the executable to the windows environment

There are 2 ways to do it, I will show you both:

From the Command Prompt

Run the Command Prompt as Administrator and one important thing here you must use the Command prompt (CMD.exe) and not Powershell or it will overwrite your System PATH with a bad value.

The command below adds FFmpeg executables yo your Windows environment, you need to replace path\to\FFmpeg with the correct path:

setx /M PATH "path\to\FFmpeg\bin;%PATH%"

Example:

setx /M PATH "C:\Program Files\FFmpeg\bin;%PATH%"

FFmpeg Windows Environment

Close the command prompt and open a new one without administrator privileges and the command FFmpeg should be available.

From This PC Propierties

Right click on This PC and then click on Properties.

This PC Properties

Click on Advanced system settings. In the System Properties windows click on Environment Variables:

Windows Environment Variables

There are two sections, the section with variables for your current user and the other section for all users the system variables, here you have the option to add FFmpeg only for your user or for all users, in the case you choose all users, double-click on the Path variable:

Windows-System Variables

Here we need to add the FFmpeg path, in my case C:\Program Files\FFmpeg\bin:

Windows Add Variable Environment

Now you can open your Command Prompt and start using FFmpeg.