How to Loop a Video on a Mac (QuickTime, IINA, and VLC)
To loop a video on a Mac, open it in QuickTime Player and tick Loop, near the bottom of the View menu, or press ⌥⌘L. The file then restarts at the beginning every time it reaches the end, until you stop it. That is the whole answer for most people, and it takes about five seconds. Two cases it does not cover, a file QuickTime refuses to open and a loop you want other people to see as your webcam, are further down.
QuickTime Player: View, then Loop
- Open the file. Double-click a .mov, .mp4 or .m4v and QuickTime Player takes it by default. If something else opens instead, right-click and choose Open With → QuickTime Player.
- Tick Loop. Near the bottom of the View menu. A tick appears beside it while looping is on, and ⌥⌘L toggles the same thing without the menu.
- Press Space. At the end the playhead jumps back to the start instead of stopping.
- Enter Full Screen
- Float on Top
- Loop
Two things catch people out. Loop is per file, not a preference, so the next video you open starts unlooped. And it is a playback setting: nothing is written into the video, so the same file sent to a colleague arrives without the loop.
For a screen that has to run unattended, at a stand or in a waiting room, pair Loop with Enter Full Screen (⌃⌘F). Float on Top, in the same menu, is the other useful pairing: a small window that stays visible while you work.
When QuickTime will not open the file: IINA and VLC
QuickTime Player only plays what macOS can decode on its own, which rules out MKV and a long tail of older codecs. Two free players cover the rest, and both loop.
- IINA is the Mac-native one, open source and built on mpv. Its loop control is a single button in the playlist panel, cycling through off, the whole playlist, and the one open file. Repeating a single file arrived in IINA 1.3.5, so update if your copy only offers the playlist.
- VLC keeps repeat in the Playback menu, as one item cycling through off, repeat all and repeat one. It is also the only one of the three that can loop a chosen stretch.
| Player | Where the loop control is | What it loops |
|---|---|---|
| QuickTime Player | View → Loop, or ⌥⌘L | The open file |
| IINA | Loop button in the playlist panel | One file, or a whole playlist |
| VLC | Playback menu | One file, a playlist, or an A to B section |
Looping part of a video instead of all of it
VLC does this directly: in the Playback menu, choose the A to B loop where the stretch should start and again where it should end. There is no toolbar button for it on macOS, so the menu is the route.
QuickTime Player has no equivalent, but trimming gets you to the same place and leaves a file you can reuse. Edit → Trim (⌘T) turns the timeline into a yellow handle bar: drag the ends, click Trim, save as a new file, and loop that one. A shorter clip also loops more convincingly, because there is less to recognise on the second pass.
A looping video is not a looping webcam
None of these three can hand their window to a meeting app. The camera picker in Zoom, Meet, Slack or Teams lists cameras, not windows, so a QuickTime window playing on repeat stays on your screen and reaches nobody else. A loop other people can see needs a virtual camera: software that registers itself with macOS as a camera, so those pickers list it next to your built-in one.
That is the job CamLoop does, for the short step-away moment: a few seconds of you at your desk, looped through its own virtual camera, with one hotkey switching your feed from live to the loop and back. Your microphone passes through untouched, so you still hear your name and can answer. How to loop your webcam on a Mac covers that route and the OBS one, and the virtual camera roundup compares the tools.
FAQ
How do I loop a video in QuickTime on a Mac? Open it in QuickTime Player and tick Loop, near the bottom of the View menu, or press Option-Command-L. A tick appears beside Loop, and playback restarts from the beginning instead of stopping at the end. The setting covers that one file, so tick it again for the next video.
Does QuickTime Player remember the loop setting? No. Loop is a per-file playback setting, not a saved preference, so the next video you open starts unlooped. Nothing is written into the file either, which is why a copy you send to someone else arrives without the loop.
Can I loop only part of a video on a Mac? VLC can, with the A to B loop in its Playback menu: choose it where the stretch should start and again where it should end. QuickTime Player has no equivalent, so trim instead with Edit, Trim (Command-T), save the shorter file, and loop that one.
Can I loop a video as my webcam in Zoom? Not from QuickTime, IINA or VLC. A camera picker lists cameras, not app windows, so a looping player never reaches the call. That needs a virtual camera, which is what CamLoop and OBS provide.
Playing a file on repeat is one job. Looping yourself as your camera is another, and the two-minute setup guide is where that one starts.