How do you convert an entire directory with ffmpeg

Question

How do you convert an entire directory folder with ffmpeg via command line or with a batch script

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Previous answer will only create 1 output file called out mov  To make a separate output file for each old movie  try this   for i in   avi    do name  echo   i    cut -d    -f1    echo   name    ffmpeg -i   i     name  mov  done

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To convert with subdirectories use e g    find   -exec ffmpeg -i       mp3

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This will create mp4 video from all the jpg files from current directory   echo exec  ffmpeg -framerate 1 5 -i photo d jpg -r 25 -pix fmt yuv420p output mp4

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little php script to do it       usr bin env php  lt  php declare strict types   1   if   argc     2        fprintf   STDERR   usage   s dir n    argv  0         die   1       dir   rtrim    argv  1   DIRECTORY SEPARATOR    if    is readable    dir          fprintf   STDERR   supplied path is not readable   try running as an administrator           die 1     if    is dir    dir          fprintf   STDERR   supplied path is not a directory          die 1      files   glob    dir   DIRECTORY SEPARATOR      avi     foreach    files as  file         system    ffmpeg -i     escapeshellarg    file           escapeshellarg    file     mp4

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For Windows   Here I m Converting all the   mp4  files to   mp3  files  Just open cmd  goto the desired folder and type the command   Shortcut   optional  1  Goto the folder where your   mp4  files are present 2  Press Shift and Left click and Choose  Open PowerShell Window Here       or  Open Command Prompt Window Here  3  Type  cmd   NOTE  Skip this step if it directly opens cmd instead of PowerShell  4  Run the command   for  i in    mp4  do ffmpeg -i   i     ni mp3    If you want to put this into a batch file on Windows 10  you need to use   i

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for i in   flac    do name  echo    i          echo  name    ffmpeg -i    i   -ab 320k -map metadata 0 -id3v2 version 3    name   mp3  done   Batch process flac files into mp3  safe for file names with spaces  using  1   2

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A one-line bash script would be easy to do - replace   avi with your filetype   for i in   avi  do ffmpeg -i   i  -qscale 0    basename   i   avi   mov    done

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I m using this one-liner in linux to convert files  usually H265  into something I can play on Kodi without issues   for f in   mkv  do ffmpeg -i   f  -c v libx264 -crf 28 -c a aac -b a 128k output mkv  mv -f output mkv   f   done   This converts to a temporary file and then replaces the original so the names remain the same after conversion

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I needed all the videos to use the same codec for merging purposes so this conversion is mp4 to mp4 it s in zsh but should easily be convertible to bash for S    mp4    ffmpeg -i  S -c v libx264 -r 30  new S

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If you want a graphical interface to batch process with ffmpegX  try Quick Batcher  It s free and will take your last ffmpegX settings to convert files you drop into it    Note that you can t drag-drop folders onto Quick Batcher  So select files and then put them through Quick Batcher

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For Linux and macOS this can be done in one line  using parameter expansion to change the filename extension of the output file   for i in   avi  do ffmpeg -i   i     i     mp4   done

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And for Windows  this does not work  FOR  F  tokens     G IN   dir  b   flac   DO ffmpeg -i   G  -acodec mp3    nG mp3    even if I do double those     I would even suggest   -acodec    libmp3lame      also   FOR  F  tokens     G IN   dir  b   flac   DO ffmpeg -i   G  -acodec libmp3lame    nG mp3

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Getting a bit like code golf here  but since nearly all the answers so far are bash  barring one lonely cmd one   here s a windows cross-platform command that uses powershell  because awesome    ls   avi    ffmpeg -i     lt ffmpeg options here gt     name replace    extension    mp4      You can change   avi to whatever matches your source footage

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Also if you want same convertion in subfolders  here is the recursive code   for  R  folder path    f in    mov   mxf   mkv   webm  do       ffmpeg exe -i     f      f mp4

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And on Windows   FOR  F  tokens     G IN   dir  b   flac   DO ffmpeg -i   G  -acodec mp3    nG mp3

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Of course  now PowerShell has come along  specifically designed to make something exactly like this extremely easy   And  yes  PowerShell is also available on other operating systems other than just Windows  but it comes pre-installed on Windows  so this should be useful to everyone   First  you ll want to list all of the files within the current directory  so  we ll start off with   ls   You can also use ls -Recurse if you want to recursively convert all files in subdirectories too   Then  we ll filter those down to only the type of file we want to convert - e g   avi    ls   Where      Extension -eq   avi      After that  we ll pass that information to FFmpeg through a ForEach   For FFmpeg s input  we will use the FullName - that s the entire path to the file  And for FFmpeg s output we will use the Name - but replacing the  avi at the end with  mp3  So  it will look something like this      Name Replace   avi     mp3     So  let s put all of that together and this is the result   ls   Where      Extension -eq   avi      ForEach   ffmpeg -i    FullName    Name Replace   avi     mp3       That will convert all   avi  files into   mp3  files through FFmpeg  just replace the three things in quotes to decide what type of conversion you want  and feel free to add any other arguments to FFmpeg within the ForEach   You could take this a step further and add Remove-Item to the end to automatically delete the old files   If ffmpeg isn t in your path  and it s actually in the directory you re currently in  write   ffmpeg there instead of just ffmpeg   Hope this helps anyone

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The following script works well for me in a Bash on Windows  so it should work just as well on Linux and Mac   It addresses some problems I have had with some other solutions   Processes files in subfolders Replaces the source extension with the target extension instead of just appending it Works with files with multiple spaces and multiple dots in the name  See this answer for details   Can be run when the target file exists  prompting before overwriting  ffmpeg-batch-convert sh  sourceExtension  1   e g   quot mp3 quot  targetExtension  2   e g   quot wav quot  IFS    n   set -f for sourceFile in   find   -iname  quot    sourceExtension quot   do     targetFile  quot   sourceFile      targetExtension quot      ffmpeg -i  quot  sourceFile quot   quot  targetFile quot  done unset IFS  set  f  Example call    sh ffmpeg-batch-convert sh mp3 wav As a bonus  if you want the source files deleted  you can modify the script like this  sourceExtension  1   e g   quot mp3 quot  targetExtension  2   e g   quot wav quot  deleteSourceFile  3    quot delete quot  or omitted IFS    n   set -f for sourceFile in   find   -iname  quot    sourceExtension quot   do     targetFile  quot   sourceFile      targetExtension quot      ffmpeg -i  quot  sourceFile quot   quot  targetFile quot      if    quot  deleteSourceFile quot      quot delete quot     then         if   -f  quot  targetFile quot     then             rm  quot  sourceFile quot          fi     fi done unset IFS  set  f  Example call    sh ffmpeg-batch-convert sh mp3 wav delete

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This is what I use to batch convert avi to 1280x mp4  FOR  F  tokens      G IN   dir  b   avi   DO  D  Downloads ffmpeg exe  -hide banner -i    G  -threads 8 -acodec mp3 -b a 128k -ac 2 -strict -2 -c v libx264 -crf 23 -filter v  scale 1280 -2 unsharp 5 5 1 0 5 5 0 0  -sws flags lanczos -b v 1024k -profile v main -preset medium -tune film -async 1 -vsync 1     nG mp4    Works well as a cmd file  run it  the loop finds all avi files in that folder   calls MY  change for yours  ffmpeg  passes input name  the settings are for rescaling up with sharpening  I probs don t need CRF and  -b v 1024k      Output file is input file minus the extension  with mp4 as new ext

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windows    echo off for  r   d in    wav  do       ffmpeg -i     nd   xd  -codec a libmp3lame -c v copy -qscale a 2       nd 2 mp3      this is variable bitrate of quality 2  you can set it to 0 if you want but unless you have a really good speaker system it s worthless imo

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Another simple solution that hasn t been suggested yet would be to use xargs   ls   avi   xargs -i -n1 ffmpeg -i        mp4   One minor pitfall is the awkward naming of output files  e g  input avi mp4   A possible workaround for this might be   ls   avi   xargs -i -n1 bash -c  i     ffmpeg -i        i     mp4

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For anyone who wants to batch convert anything with ffmpeg but would like to have a convenient Windows interface  I developed this front-end   https   sourceforge net projects ffmpeg-batch  It adds to ffmpeg a window fashion interface  progress bars and time remaining info  features I always missed when using ffmpeg

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If you have GNU parallel you could convert all  avi files below vid dir to mp4 in parallel  using all except one of your CPU cores with  find vid dir -type f -name    avi  -not -empty -print0       parallel -0 -j -1 ffmpeg -loglevel fatal -i        mp4   To convert from to different formats  change    avi  or  mp4 as needed  GNU parallel is listed in most Linux distributions  repositories in a package which is usually called parallel

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Only this one Worked for me  pls notice that you have to create  newfiles  folder manually where the ffmpeg exe file is located   Convert   files to  wav audio Code   for   a in         do ffmpeg exe -i    a   newfiles    na wav  pause   i e if you want to convert all  mp3 files to  wav change         to     mp3     The author of this script is     https   forum videohelp com threads 356314-How-to-batch-convert-multiplex-any-files-with-ffmpeg   hope it helped

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I know this might be redundant but I use this script to batch convert files   old extension  1 new extension  2  for i in     old extension     do ffmpeg -i   i     i      new extension   done   It takes 2 arguments to make it more flexible     the extension you want to convert from the new extension you want to convert to   I create an alias for it but you can also use it manually like this   sh batch convert sh mkv mp4   This would convert all the mkv files into mp4 files    As you can see it slightly more versatile  As long as ffmpeg can convert it you can specify any two extensions

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I use this for add subtitle for Tvshows or Movies on Windows  Just create  quot subbed quot  folder and bat file in the video and sub directory Put code in bat file and run  for  R    f in    mov   mxf   mkv   webm  do       ffmpeg exe  -i  quot    f quot  -i  quot    nf srt quot  -map 0 v -map 0 a -map 1 s -metadata s a language eng -metadata s s 1 language tur -c copy   subbed  quot    nf mkv quot

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For giggles  here s solution in fish-shell  for i in   avi  ffmpeg -i  quot  i quot   string split -r -m1    i  1  quot  mp4 quot   end

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Linux To convert a bunch  my one liner is this  as example   avi to  mkv  in same directory  for f in   avi  do ffmpeg -i  quot   f  quot   quot   f      mkv quot   done  please observe the double  quot    quot  in the output statement  It gives you not only the first word or the input filename  but everything before the last dot

[ffmpeg] How do you convert an entire directory with ffmpeg?

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