Convert ProRes to H.264 for Web on Mac (Without Opening Terminal)
You've finished your edit. The timeline looks great, the color is dialed, and the export is sitting in your output folder as a beautiful, enormous ProRes .mov file. And now your client wants a web-ready H.264 MP4 for their website.
This is the moment a lot of editors reach for Terminal, look up an FFmpeg command they half-remember, and spend 10 minutes fighting flags. There's a better way.
Why ProRes to H.264 Is Such a Common Problem
ProRes is Apple's professional intermediate codec — it's designed for editing, not delivery. It's visually lossless and hardware-accelerated on Apple Silicon, which makes it perfect for keeping quality through multiple generations of export. But ProRes files are enormous. A 5-minute 4K ProRes 422 file can be 10–15GB. For web delivery, YouTube, or client previews, you need H.264 (or H.265), which compresses that same file down to 200–500MB with barely perceptible quality loss.
The challenge is that macOS doesn't give you an easy built-in path from ProRes to H.264 with any control over the output. QuickTime Player can export "1080p" but gives you no control over bitrate, codec profile, or quality. Compressor is powerful but expensive and overkill for a simple conversion. HandBrake works but has a dated interface and doesn't handle ProRes source files as gracefully as you'd want.
How to Convert ProRes to H.264 on Mac with Expi
Expi is a native Mac app built on FFmpeg that gives you a clean drag-and-drop interface for exactly this kind of conversion.
Step 1: Open Expi and drag in your ProRes file
Drag your .mov ProRes file directly into Expi. It'll read the source codec, resolution, frame rate, and audio tracks automatically.
Step 2: Set your output format to MP4 with H.264
Select MP4 as your container and H.264 as your video codec. For web delivery, H.264 is the safest choice — it plays natively in every browser, every device, and every platform without requiring a modern codec decoder.
Step 3: Choose your quality setting
For most web delivery, a CRF (Constant Rate Factor) of 18–23 gives excellent results. Lower numbers = higher quality, larger file. CRF 23 is a good starting point; CRF 18 is near-transparent quality. Expi exposes this setting directly without requiring you to know what CRF means — just move the quality slider.
Step 4: Enable hardware acceleration
On Apple Silicon or Intel Macs, Expi uses Apple's VideoToolbox to accelerate H.264 encoding. This can be 5–10x faster than CPU encoding for large ProRes files. The option is on by default.
Step 5: Export
Hit export. Expi processes everything locally — your ProRes file never leaves your machine, there's no upload, and there's no file size limit. A 10GB ProRes file will typically export to a 300–500MB H.264 MP4 in a few minutes on Apple Silicon.
Batch Converting Multiple ProRes Files
If you're delivering multiple clips, Expi handles batch conversion natively. Drag a folder of ProRes files in, set your output settings once, and Expi converts the whole queue. This is especially useful for:
- Camera dumps from a shoot where you need proxies or delivery files
- Delivering multiple versions of a cut in different formats
- Converting an archive of ProRes masters to a more storage-efficient codec
Why Not Use HandBrake?
HandBrake can technically convert ProRes to H.264, but it's designed primarily for consumer video files and doesn't handle ProRes source material as cleanly. You may encounter color space issues (HandBrake's defaults can introduce subtle color shifts with ProRes source) or find the interface doesn't surface the controls you need.
Expi processes ProRes through FFmpeg directly, which handles Apple's codec profiles correctly and preserves color accuracy through the conversion.
Why Not Use the Terminal?
The FFmpeg command for ProRes to H.264 isn't complicated once you know it:
ffmpeg -i input.mov -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset medium -c:a aac -b:a 192k output.mp4
But "once you know it" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. If you're not a regular FFmpeg user, you'll need to look up the flags, choose a preset, decide on audio bitrate, and figure out why your colors look slightly off after export. Expi handles all of that for you with sensible defaults you can override when you need to.
The Short Version
If you need ProRes to H.264 on Mac:
1. Download Expi from getexpi.app
2. Drag your ProRes .mov file in
3. Set output to MP4 / H.264
4. Enable hardware acceleration
5. Export
Your file stays on your machine, the conversion is fast, and you don't need to open Terminal.