Quicktime/OS X: No Audio For AVI Files? Solution: Perian

Posted August 1st, 2008, in: Computer Problems and Fixes| Technology

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 2009: In the last few weeks, I’ve been getting a lot of traffic to this post. Please leave a comment if you recently installed Snow Leopard, which is what I suspect is the reason for the reason surge in searches for solutions to this problem.

.avi files are all over the place in the BitTorrent world.

If your Mac doesn’t seem to be able to play back .avi files with sound, you’re not alone.

But the solution is simple. After a year of this, I finally found it. No longer do I need the VLC player, which was my old work-around for this problem.

Download Perian, “The swiss army knife of Quicktime components.”

Problem solved. I can finally play avi movies and hear the audio in quicktime, itunes etc.

Interestingly enough, some people are saying that AVI is actually supposed to be an obsolete format. From a mac support forum:

“AVI is merely an (outdated) container which can include a number of different codecs, not all of which can be made Mac-compatible.”

…And from some random MIT-related site, I found:

“AVI (Audio-Video Interleave) is a rather old file format that Microsoft has been trying to abandon for years in an attempt to get people to switch to their Windows Media format instead. However, the simplicity of AVI and its ubiquity and made it quite popular, so AVIs are still widely used. There are many third-party developers using AVIs, so there is a wide array of AVI codecs available.”

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51 Responses to “Quicktime/OS X: No Audio For AVI Files? Solution: Perian”

aszru wrote on August 4th, 2008 11:08 am :

Thanks a lot, you give my Quicktime new live

Max wrote on August 12th, 2008 10:04 pm :

Wow! That was amazing! I installed it and it magically fixed the problem with my .avi movies!
Thank you so much!!

Lou wrote on August 22nd, 2008 6:42 am :

omfg you are a freakin god! i have been having this issue for so long and everyday i look a little harder to find a solution. I am so glad that you put that seemingly never-ending quest to a halt. Thanks a lot for this helpful post!!

Julie wrote on September 6th, 2008 5:33 am :

Magic! Thank you so much for this solution! Finally all my .avi files work again on Quicktime. I was using DivX to play them which takes so much longer to open up. Thank you so much!!

Mathew wrote on September 10th, 2008 10:23 am :

absolutely fantastic. exactly what i needed. nothing more and nothing less. works like a charm. thank you!

Kattman wrote on September 16th, 2008 3:43 am :

Perfect—I can hear all of my movies again!!!

Thank You!

Lachlan wrote on September 24th, 2008 6:50 am :

After so much frustration and multiple downloads of codecs it was so pleasing to find that this program just worked.

well done

Ken wrote on November 2nd, 2008 10:19 am :

Got my sound back.

Thanks!!!

adam wrote on November 3rd, 2008 7:05 pm :

still no sound

Metamorfose wrote on November 30th, 2008 10:37 pm :

I am using a mabook pro with: intel duo core, runing Leopard 10.5, last version of QT and after installing divX, perian, and codecs like A52, i still get no sound on my AVIs…

Billy wrote on December 24th, 2008 3:00 am :

You rock! I am using a macbook pro with intel duo core, Leopard 10.5, etc. I reinstalled divX and just installed perian. It works perfectly now.
Thanks!

Lawrence wrote on December 25th, 2008 8:04 am :

Still no sound. I followed the instructions, downloaded the perian, still no sound for my AVI files. Please help.

labamba wrote on January 8th, 2009 4:17 am :

haha yea it didn’t work for me at first, but then i restarted my computer and it worked…i have a white macbook with leopard.. thank you!

samuelchristoph wrote on January 9th, 2009 9:17 am :

Simply amazing. I just installed it, and my problem was instantly fixed without my doing anything else. Thank you so much.

Jon wrote on January 15th, 2009 5:09 am :

Thanks!!!!!

tonino wrote on January 20th, 2009 8:38 am :

brilliant!

nic wrote on February 9th, 2009 5:31 am :

bloody awesome. was beginning to get very frustrated! so simple and works straight away. thank you!!

cgm wrote on February 21st, 2009 11:57 am :

Thank you! Works perfectly, so easy!!

chense wrote on March 18th, 2009 4:20 pm :

Thank you so much! It worked like a charm.

Alex wrote on March 24th, 2009 6:12 am :

Thanks a million! It was driving me crazy!!!

MacPhobia wrote on March 31st, 2009 7:56 pm :

It absolutely helped me.. Thanks.. but QuickTime and Mac suck .. all because of such simple problems..

iceflowr wrote on May 2nd, 2009 11:29 pm :

i installed perian because i’m not able to hear audio on the videos from Cosmeo (even if i save them to quicktime on my desktop. it didn’t solve the problem. is there something i have to do aside form installing perian? i went through all the readme’s and thigns, and it seems like i just install it, open it, and poof, quicktime should be fabulous. am i missing something? Thanks!

andrewapeterson wrote on May 2nd, 2009 11:49 pm :

I took a look at Cosmeo. It looks to me like they’re all Flash Videos on that site. Maybe I’m missing something. They have a page for figuring out if your computer/browser is compatible:
http://www.cosmeo.com/welcome/requirements.html
On the other hand, if it is an AVI file you’re trying to play and you’re not getting sound, and Perian didn’t work, there’s always the VLC Player, which plays just about everything:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Another thing you might try is doing a routine permissions repair, which you should do any time your mac starts doing something weird:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452
Good luck and let us know what happens!

be wrote on June 15th, 2009 9:48 am :

AMAZING! I have been trying to resolve this issue for a long time and finally your site provided a solution that works! THANK YOU!!!!

Angel Strong wrote on July 24th, 2009 3:29 am :

You are awesome!!! It such a great help. Thanks a lot.

tym wrote on July 28th, 2009 3:26 am :

it’s a miracle!! so glad I found it!!

)))

B Hatchet wrote on August 6th, 2009 6:55 pm :

BRILLIANT!

rawhailstorm wrote on September 2nd, 2009 6:31 pm :

you saved my insignificant life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
another mac problem solved

Ermac wrote on September 19th, 2009 6:16 pm :

Thanks a lot! I checked several solutions but yours is the only one which really worked.

Lance wrote on September 26th, 2009 3:02 pm :

This is really appreciated!!!!!!!!

Lance wrote on September 26th, 2009 3:03 pm :

Thanks! You are appreciated!

Jose Rodriguez wrote on September 26th, 2009 5:14 pm :

I installed Snow Leopard and then lost my sound with QuickTime. I was also directed to DL a new DivX player. I did all of that and had no sound still. I DLed this Perian and it was all fixed. Great link, thanks for the info. Perian fixed all my sound issues with the latest & greatest QuickTime.

Nick wrote on September 27th, 2009 9:00 pm :

I installed Perian and it didn’t work.

michael halliday wrote on October 19th, 2009 7:40 pm :

Thanks so much for your “signpost” to Perian! I installed a copy on my mac and now all my newly captured 640×384 wide screen video files, taken with my new LG Renoir play back with quicktime on my mac – just as nature intended! – where as before they were sadly mute!

andrewapeterson wrote on October 21st, 2009 3:09 am :

Nick,
There’s always VLC

jayMorague wrote on December 4th, 2009 2:51 pm :

I can’t believe fixing the issue was that simple. You saved movie night!

Justine wrote on January 20th, 2010 3:16 am :

Thank you for the magical fixer!

William wrote on February 11th, 2010 2:37 pm :

Did not work at first but then I closed Quicktime (not just the .avi file which I had been doing) and re-opened the file and ZIIIIIIIIING – audio.

Thanks a million!

hill bill e wrote on June 2nd, 2010 5:02 am :

thanks, 10.6.3. quicktime x, i”m hope they rewrite quicktime pro in cocoa soon

killerbee1026 wrote on August 3rd, 2010 1:20 am :

YOU ROCK….thank you 10+++++++++

killerbee wrote on August 3rd, 2010 1:22 am :

you rock…thank you. 10++++++++++++

thedarcnus wrote on August 11th, 2010 9:58 pm :

You are the man!! this saved my sanity downloaded everything the internet had to offer-nothing. used this-EVERYTHING. anyone with no sound still just restart your comp,easy peasy. you’re going to Valhalla dude,just know that.

Waska wrote on November 6th, 2010 2:27 am :

Thanks a lot. now I can hear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Owen wrote on February 26th, 2011 6:01 pm :

Thank you so much! I had to watch a movie for a class, but when I downloaded it, the audio didn’t work, and now it does. And for the record, I’m using OS X 10.5.8.

ale wrote on April 23rd, 2011 4:57 am :

thanks!!

Leslie wrote on June 13th, 2011 5:18 am :

Brilliant ! Thankyou sooo much

healthyemily wrote on October 21st, 2011 1:27 am :

Step by step guide on how to Convert AVI to QuickTime for Play AVI in QuickTime on Mac Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Tiger at http://www.bigasoft.com/articles/how-to-play-avi-in-quicktime-on-mac.html