Commons:Media help

Media community: Audio and video requests · Featured media (candidates) · Media help · Media of the Day · Timed Text · Video info · Video2commons–Upload · Video cut tool

Help pages for playing media files on Commons

To play sound and video files

File types

Wikimedia Commons uses open formats like Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV for sound files and Ogg Theora and WebM for video files.

These file types are preferred to other, more common file types, because the Ogg and MP3 file types are not encumbered with patents. You can learn in the following pages which software and which codecs you need to play our media files.

The latest versions of all major desktop web browsers are able to play sound files and videos without any additional codecs or software. Mobile browsers like iOS and Android support MP3 and WAV but Android also supports Ogg.

If you are looking for help creating or editing media files, see Commons:Software and Commons:Video/Commons:Audio.

Choose your operating system:

Windows

macOS

Unix (Linux, BSD etc.)

iOS (iPhone, iPad etc.)

Android

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