Are you looking for a suitable MKV player to play MKV files? MiniTool released a free tool – MiniTool MovieMaker to help you easily play MKV files in Windows, and let you edit MKV files as well as change video file format easily.
MKV, Matroska Multimedia Container, is an open standard free container file format. It can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture, or subtitle tracks inside a single file, thus many users choose to store common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows in MKV.
However, some users encounter problems while playing MKV files. Now, what player can play MKV? What is the best MKV player?
Let’s look at the best MKV file players you can try.
Top 16 MKV Players: Play MKV Files Easily
16 efficient and free MKV players are listed below to help you easily play MKV files.
1. MiniTool MovieMaker
Supported OS: Windows
To play MKV files in Windows, you can try MiniTool MovieMaker, a free, ads-free, and no bundle video editing software. As long as you have MiniTool MovieMaker, you can not only play MKV files easily and freely but also convert MKV to MP4, AVI, or other file formats.
Main Features of the Best MKV Player for Windows 10/11
- Free, ads free.
- Multi-track editing.
- Play MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, MKV, WEBM, and other files.
- Convert MKV to other video files such as MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, etc., or vice versa, and even convert videos to audio files.
- Edit MKV files easily and quickly including adding subtitles to video, rotating video, trimming or splitting video, adding music to video file, adding transition, effect, or filter to video file, etc., and reversing video as well.
- Change video resolution, frame rate, and so on.
- Make Hollywood-style movies in a few clicks.
2. VLC Media player
Supported OS: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Mobile
VLC Media Player is an open-source media player that can play MKV files without installing a codec.
VLC Media Player supports most video and audio streams you can find in a .mkv file. If you use this well-known format video player as an MKV player, you can organize and operate MKV video’s multiple video/audio/subtitle tracks decently.
Unfortunately, VLC takes time to open up a file and lacks a user-friendly interface. Although this open-source MKV player offers some advanced features including rotating video, it is too complicated to handle with them. It is recommended to choose VLC alternatives.
3. 5KPlayer
Supported OS: Windows 10/8/7/XP and Mac OS X 10.6 or later
5KPlayer is another free and good MKV file player that supports all types of MKV files with whatever video/audio codecs because of its built-in MKV codec. Of course, this MKV player can play other files including MP4, HEVC, M2TS, H.264, MPEG-4, AVI, MOV, WMV, FLV, etc. in whatever resolution, 720p, 1080p Full HD or 4K Ultra HD.
This free MKV video player does have a slew of extra features as follows:
- Play lossy/lossless music.
- Free download of MKV movies from 300+ online video sites and download videos and songs from 1000+ video sites.
4. Media Player Classic
Supported OS: Windows
Media Player Classic (aka. MPC-HC), the open-source video player, is another most downloaded MKV file player on Windows. While downloading this free MKV player, you don’t need to worry about security matters since there are no advertisements, annoying toolbars, or latent spyware.
However, it does have some disadvantages. When playing MKV files in Windows 10, you will find this free MKV player has trouble getting embedded MKV subtitles to display because it lacks the MKV codec. Now, to solve this issue, you can download and install the Media Player Classic codec pack and reinstall MPC again.
5. DivX Plus Player
Supported OS: Windows and Mac
DivX Plus Player can play MKV files in a good way. This MKV player also offers other good features. Such as, it offers a smooth fast-forward and rewind MKV playing process, and it supports up to 8 MKV multiple subtitles and audio tracks.
One of the biggest problems with this MKV file player is that there is no free available for users. Sometimes, to give a larger range of MKV media playing options, you need to add a Blu-ray video playback function to this MKV player.
6. CyberLink PowerDVD
Supported OS: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista
PowerDVD is one of the best MKV players for Windows 10. It offers s three different options, (Standard, Pro, and Ultra) to meet different users’ needs. This MKV player is an all-round multimedia player. It delivers the most immersive 360˚ VR experience possible with new spatial audio support. It even can download videos from YouTube or Vimeo.
Unfortunately, PowerDVD doesn’t offer a free version. If you like, you can try this MKV player for 30 days.
7. RealPlayer
Supported OS: Windows & macOS & Linux & Android
RealPlayer is a free MKV video player that can play MKV files with common video codecs. Besides, this MKV file player lets you download MKV videos from online sites. Moreover, it supports video conversion. Thus, you can change MKV to MP4 or another file format you like.
8. KMPlayer
Supported OS: Windows
KMPlayer supports an expansive library of video codecs and formats such as MPEG 1/2/4, ASF, MKV, FLV, MP4, DVD, etc. Thus, you can use this player to play the MKV file. This MKV player lets you make some adjustments, including image filtering, soundtrack, brightness, saturation, zoom, playback jump, etc.
KMPlayer is a good MKV player but it has some disadvantages. It contains bundled software and off-putting advertisements.
9. Potplayer
Supported OS: Windows
Both Potplayer and KMplayer have things in common because part of the Potplayer’s development team still comes from KMPlayer. However, Potplayer offers outstanding GPU hardware decoding and encoding for 4K high-resolution video. Thus, it is a good MKV player.
If you play MKV videos with compute-intensive HEVC codec via this MKV player, you will notice that this player produces smooth playback effects, with a crisp video picture and clear sound, no freezing/lagging or any stuttering issues. On the other hand, your system responsiveness will be improved because the computer CPU can be reduced to a minimum degree.
10. GOM Player
Supported OS: Windows
Made in South Korea, the GOM player is another free MKV player that can play MKV files with H264, HEVC, and VP8 codecs. But it cannot play MKV files with the VP9 codec.
This MKV player freeware provides much higher information transparency and more sincerity to its users. It lists all shortcomings. It has entry-level requirements for your desktop, it tells you that it cannot handle all video playback, etc. All information including shortcomings or imperfect sides is listed under “Specs” on its official product webpage.
11. SMPlayer
Supported OS: Windows
SMPlayer is another free MKV player and this player can play almost every video file format. This player is a good choice for users because of its codec-free playback. The interface of this MKV file player looks similar to Media Player Classic.
12. UMPlayer
Supported OS: Windows
UMPlayer is a multi-format media player that can play MKV, MP4, MOV, HEVC, AVI, WMV, etc. This MKV player lets you search for videos from YouTube. However, there is no YouTube streaming/recording, and no hardware decoding in this MKV player.
13. Perian
Supported OS: Mac
Perian is a free-source QuickTime add-on, which lets you view files in a wide range of formats such as MKV, AVI, DIVX, FLV, GVI, VP6, etc. If you find you cannot play MKV files on Mac via QuickTime Player, you can install the plug-in MKV player to add extra support for playing MKV in QuickTime.
14. MPlayerX
Supported OS: Mac OS X 10.7 or later
MPlayerX is another simple, powerful, and beautiful MKV player for Mac, which can play MPEG, VOB, Matroska(MKV), ASF/WMA/WMV, VIVO, QT/MOV/MP4, AVI, Ogg/OGM, RealMedia, NUT, NuppelVideo and more. In a word, it can play virtually any media format in the world without extra plugins or codec packages.
This MKV Player for Mac lets you control playback easily. For instance, you can easily control how your video is played by using simple gestures. MplayerX will automatically display subtitles to your video because it can detect and convert the encoding methods of a subtitle file.
15. MoliPlayer
Supported OS: iOS
To play MKV files on your iPhone or iPad, you can try MoliPlayer. This MKV player app can play most video file formats including 3GP, ASF, AVI, MKV, MOV, M4V, etc. Also, this MKV player supports multiple audio tracks in a file and supports subtitles in many languages.
With this free MKV player, you can easily organize your movie collection to keep your files in apple-pie order.
16. MX Player
Supported OS: Android
MX Player is the first Android video player that supports multi-core decoding, which can play any media file format and accept other plugins for extensibility. This MKV player lets you easily zoom in and out by pinching and swiping across the screen.
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Further Reading: 3 Tips About MKV Files
The 16 players mentioned above each have their advantages and disadvantages, and you can choose one of them according to your own needs. In addition to playing MKV files, you may also need to convert the file format of the MKV files or edit them, and so on.
How to Play MKV Files?
If you are a Windows 10/11 user, you can try MiniTool MovieMaker. It is a free, no-ads MKV player.
MiniTool MovieMakerClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Check the below steps to play MKV files.
Step 1. Download and install MiniTool MovieMaker on PC.
Step 2. Enter the main window of MiniTool MovieMaker. Select the Import Media Files button to import MKV files. Or you can navigate to More (hamburger icon in the upper right) > File > Import Media> Import From PC, then just pick up your desired MKV files from your computer storage.
Step 3. Drag them to the timeline or simply click the plus icon (+) on the target files to add them to the timeline. Click the Play button in the preview section to watch your MKV files.
Convert MKV File Format
There are different MKV players that can help you play MKV files successfully. When you cannot play MKV files, you can try a free file converter to change the file format if you don’t know which MKV player to choose.
MiniTool MovieMaker, a free video editor, is recommended here. It can play MKV files easily. It can also change file formats such as MP4 to MP3, WEBM to MP4, MKV to MP3, etc. Of course, it can convert MKV to another file format like MP4 which is compatible with almost all devices and operating systems.
MiniTool MovieMakerClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Try the following steps to convert MKV to MP4.
Step 1. Launch MiniTool MovieMaker.
Step 2. Import your MKV file.
Step 3. Drag and drop the MKV file to the timeline.
Step 4. Click the Export.
Step 5. Give the name of this video, choose a path to store it, choose the video format as MP4, and click Settings to change video quality, resolution, encoder, bitrate, and frame rate. Then tap on Export to export the edited MKV file.
Edit MKV Files
Last but not least, MiniTool MovieMaker offers some basic video editing tools to help you edit MKV files.
- Combine videos into one to make a movie.
- Add music to videos and edit music like fade in/out music.
- Add subtitles and interesting elements to videos to tell your story.
- Apply video transitions to videos.
- Add effects or filters to videos.
- Add motion to the videos on the timeline to make them look more dynamic.
- Split a video into several small parts.
- Trim the video to remove unwanted parts.
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To Wrap Things Up
Which MKV player would you like to choose? If you still have some doubts, you can safely download MiniTool MovieMaker. This free, no ads, no bundle MKV player can perfectly play MKV files, convert MKV to another file format and even edit MKV files.
If you have any questions about MiniTool MovieMaker, please feel free to contact us via [email protected].
MKV Player FAQ
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Jocelin is keeping a strong passion for the multimedia industry with her first thoughts and visions. While continuously absorbing relevant knowledge, she believes that pictures, videos, and music can bring so much pleasure to life. To go deeper into the industry, she has acquired many skills in video editing. Also, she can provide readers with ways to solve problems on image, video, and auido topics.