FFmpeg power. Without the command line.

EncodeX — the free, open-source FFmpeg GUI for Windows, macOS & Linux.

👋 Introduction

EncodeX brings the full power of FFmpeg to a modern, intuitive desktop app — no command line required. Convert video and audio between formats, extract music from videos, trim clips, compress images, and batch-process whole folders. Developer? The same engine is available headless through the EncodeX CLI.

Want an AI assistant to do the work? EncodeX also ships a built-in MCP server, so tools like Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, and custom agents can convert and manage your media for you over the Model Context Protocol — still entirely on your own machine.

Everything runs locally on your computer — no accounts, no uploads, no watermarks, no subscriptions.

Why EncodeX?

✅ Free forever — open source (MIT), no paid tier
✅ 100% private — your files never leave your machine
✅ No account, no sign-up, no tracking
✅ No watermarks, no file-size limits, no ads
✅ FFmpeg powered — 51 video codecs, 27 audio codecs, 56 pixel formats
✅ Hardware acceleration — NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, Apple Silicon for fast encodes
✅ Batch processing — convert whole folders at once
✅ AI-ready MCP server — drive EncodeX from Claude, Cursor, VS Code, and custom agents
✅ Cross-platform — Windows 10+, macOS 11+, Linux
✅ 35+ languages with RTL support

✨ Features

🔄 Media Conversion — 51 video codecs, 27 audio codecs, 56 pixel formats with codec/bitrate/scale/quality controls
🌀 Rotation & Mirror — Rotate videos and images 90°, 180°, or 270° clockwise and flip them horizontally or vertically; MP4/MOV/MKV stream-copy stores rotation as lossless metadata
🎛️ Conversion Profiles — 140+ pre-configured presets across 8 categories (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Apple, Android, ProRes, HLS, and more) with custom profile creation and recently-used tracking
⚡ Hardware Acceleration — NVIDIA NVENC, Intel QSV, AMD AMF, VAAPI, Apple VideoToolbox, Media Foundation, auto-detected
✂️ Video Cutting — Frame-accurate trimming with a built-in player (rawvideo + PCM pipes, Canvas + Web Audio) and zoomable timeline (waveform + thumbnail montage)
📋 Batch Queue — Parallel processing (up to 4 concurrent jobs) with real-time progress, per-job errors, pause/resume, drag-and-drop reordering, job option editing, status filters, JSON export/import, and when-done power actions (shutdown/sleep/hibernate)
🖼️ Image Compression — JPEG/PNG/WebP/BMP/GIF/TIFF with quality/scale, EXIF viewer, RGB/luma histograms
🎵 Audio Extraction — Any of 27 audio codecs from any video file
ℹ️ Media Info — Full per-stream probe: codec, profile, resolution, color metadata, frame rate, etc.
⌨️ CLI Mode — Headless scripting with subcommands (convert, info, capabilities, compress, extract-audio, batch)
🤖 MCP Server — Built-in Model Context Protocol server: 13 core tools, 3 resources, and 4 prompts over stdio (encodex --mcp), plus an embedded localhost HTTP endpoint that adds 6 GUI-parity tools (live queue, preview, timeline, system info, updates). Run one-off conversions or manage async jobs from Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, or any MCP client
⚙️ 3 Transcoder Cores — FFmpeg API (fluent-ffmpeg), FFmpeg CLI (child_process), BMF Framework
🌍 56 Locales — 35 languages with RTL support (Arabic, Hebrew)
⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts — 60+ shortcuts across every page with an in-app help dialog (Ctrl+/)
🔄 In-App Updates — Checks GitHub Releases, downloads platform installer, real-time progress
🛡️ Error Handling — 16 typed error codes, global snackbar, inline banners, React error boundaries
🌗 Dark/Light Theme — System-aware with manual toggle, persistent preferences

See docs/FEATURES.md for the full feature breakdown, supported formats, and codec lists.

📸 Screenshots

🏠 Home Dashboard

🔄 Media Conversion	🎵 Audio Extraction
✂️ Video Cutting	🖼️ Image Compression
📋 Batch Queue	ℹ️ Media Info

💻 CLI Usage

Simple enough for everyday users. Powerful enough for developers. The GUI and CLI share the same engine:

encodex convert input.mp4 output.avi --video-codec libx265 --audio-codec aac
encodex info input.mp4 --json
encodex compress photo.png -f jpg -q 30
encodex extract-audio input.mp4
encodex batch 'videos/**/*.mov' --concurrency 2 --output-dir converted

# Run as an MCP server for AI assistants and automation
encodex --mcp

See docs/CLI.md for all subcommands, options, and exit codes.

📥 Downloads

Pre-built installers are available on the Releases page — or the friendly version at encodex.in/download.

macOS

EncodeX is not code-signed (no Apple Developer account). macOS Gatekeeper will block the app on first open.

Option 1 — Right-click to open:

Right-click (or Control-click) the EncodeX app and select Open
Click Open in the confirmation dialog

Option 2 — Remove quarantine via Terminal:

xattr -cr /Applications/EncodeX.app

Windows / Linux

Download the .exe (Windows) or .AppImage (Linux) installer from the Releases page and run it.

📌 Prerequisites (for contributors)

Node.js 22+
FFmpeg — bundled via ffmpeg-static; falls back to system ffmpeg if the bundled binary is unavailable

🚀 Install (from source)

npm install

🧑‍💻 Development

# Start Vite dev server + tsc watch (no Electron window)
npm run dev

# Full dev environment with Electron window
npm run electron:dev

# Quick start (build then launch)
npm run dev:start

npm run dev starts two processes concurrently:

Vite — serves the React renderer on http://localhost:5173 with HMR
tsc — watches and compiles the main process TypeScript to dist/main/

npm run electron:dev waits for Vite to be ready, compiles both main and preload, then launches Electron with the --dev flag pointing at the Vite dev server URL. DevTools open automatically.

🔨 Build

# Production build (renderer + main + preload)
npm run build

# Package for current platform (no installer)
npm run pack

# Create distributable installer
npm run dist

Script	Description
`npm run dev:renderer`	Vite dev server only
`npm run dev:main`	`tsc -p tsconfig.main.json --watch`
`npm run build:renderer`	Vite production build — outputs to `dist/renderer/`
`npm run build:main`	`tsc -p tsconfig.main.json` — outputs to `dist/main/`
`npm run build:preload`	`tsc -p tsconfig.preload.json` — outputs to `dist/preload/`
`npm run build`	All three in sequence
`npm run start`	Launch compiled app from `dist/` via `electron .`
`npm run electron:dev`	Vite + Electron dev environment
`npm run dev:start`	Build then launch
`npm run format`	`prettier --write` on all `src` TypeScript/JSON
`npm run format:check`	`prettier --check` on all `src` TypeScript/JSON
`npm run pack`	Build + electron-builder `--dir`
`npm run dist`	Build + electron-builder (NSIS/DMG/AppImage)

🧪 Testing

npm test           # Run all 123 test files / 1603 tests
npm run test:watch
npm run test:coverage
npm run test:unit
npm run test:integration
npm run test:e2e   # Requires build

See docs/TESTING.md for the full test suite breakdown, test setup, and E2E specs.

🌐 Website & Docs

encodex.in — product site, features tour, and release blog, in 8 languages
Guides — FFmpeg GUI, Video converter, Compressor, Extract audio

📚 Documentation

Document	Description
docs/FEATURES.md	Features, supported media formats, codec tables, validation utilities
docs/CLI.md	CLI usage, subcommands, all option tables, exit codes
docs/MCP.md	MCP server tool catalogue, client configs, embedded HTTP server, security
docs/TESTING.md	Test suite, test setup, E2E specs
docs/IPC.md	IPC channels, electronAPI bridge, all methods and events
docs/PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md	Full directory tree with annotations
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md	Internal architecture overview and links to deep dives
docs/ARCHITECTURE_PROCESSES.md	Process model, build system, startup sequence, CLI mode
docs/ARCHITECTURE_TRANSCODERS.md	Transcoder abstraction, FFmpeg/BMF cores, hardware acceleration
docs/ARCHITECTURE_RENDERER.md	Render tree, pages, stores, queue, player, i18n, theming
docs/UPDATE_MANAGER.md	In-app update manager implementation details
Wiki	Community wiki (mirrors the docs in a browsable form)
CONTRIBUTING.md	Contribution guidelines
SECURITY.md	Vulnerability reporting
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md	Code of conduct

🧰 Tech Stack

EncodeX tech stack

🤝 Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines. All contributions are welcome — please open an issue first for significant changes.

This project is governed by a Code of Conduct.

🔒 Security

Report security vulnerabilities to the project maintainers via the security advisory process. See SECURITY.md.

📄 License

MIT