MOV (QuickTime Movie) is Apple's video container format developed for QuickTime. iPhones and Macs default to MOV for video recording. Like MP4, MOV is a container that can hold various codecs — modern iPhone MOV files typically contain H.264 or H.265 (HEVC) video. MOV and MP4 are based on the same ISO Base Media File Format standard, making them structurally very similar.
MOV files play natively on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. On Windows, MOV support requires Apple's QuickTime player or codec packs — Windows Media Player doesn't support MOV by default. Modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox) have added MOV/H.264 support, but compatibility remains inconsistent for older codec variants. VLC media player handles MOV files reliably on all platforms.
For cross-platform sharing, convert MOV to MP4. If the MOV already contains H.264 video, this can be done by remuxing (changing the container) without re-encoding — the video quality is preserved 100% and conversion is very fast. FileCurve's video compressor can compress and convert MOV files to MP4.