.flv files
.flv file
Flash Video
The container that carried web video before HTML5 — obsolete but still on old drives.
What opens a .flv file
- Windows
- VLC, MPC-HC
- macOS
- VLC, IINA
- Linux
- VLC, mpv
What a .flv file is
FLV was how YouTube and every other video site delivered video through the Flash plugin until roughly 2015. Adobe Flash Player itself was discontinued at the end of 2020 and blocked from running, but the video inside an FLV is usually ordinary H.264 that VLC plays without complaint. Converting to MP4 is typically a fast remux with no quality loss.
Converting it
A .flv file is commonly converted to .mp4, .mkv, .avi or .mp3. It is a binary format, so a text editor will show unreadable characters rather than its contents.
Details
- Extension
- .flv
- Full name
- Flash Video
- Category
- Video
- MIME type
- video/x-flv
- Created by
- Macromedia / Adobe
- Format
- Binary
Common questions
- How do I open a .flv file?
- On Windows use VLC; on macOS use VLC; on Linux use VLC. The container that carried web video before HTML5 — obsolete but still on old drives.
- What is a .flv file?
- Flash Video. FLV was how YouTube and every other video site delivered video through the Flash plugin until roughly 2015. Adobe Flash Player itself was discontinued at the end of 2020 and blocked from running, but the video inside an FLV is usually ordinary H.264 that VLC plays without complaint.
- Can I convert a .flv file?
- Yes. It is usually converted to .mp4, .mkv, .avi or .mp3, either by exporting from one of the programs listed above or with a format converter.
Related pages
- .mp4 — MPEG-4 Part 14 Video The default video container for phones, cameras, streaming and everything else.
- .mov — QuickTime Movie Apple's video container — what an iPhone records and what Final Cut works in.
- .mkv — Matroska Video An open container that holds any codec plus multiple audio tracks and subtitles.
- .avi — Audio Video Interleave Microsoft's 1992 video container, still common in old archives and camcorder foo
- .srt — SubRip Subtitle The plain-text subtitle format almost every player understands.
- .webm — WebM Video A royalty-free video container built for the web, based on Matroska.
- .ts — MPEG Transport Stream The broadcast and streaming video segment format — also, confusingly, the TypeSc
- .wmv — Windows Media Video Microsoft's legacy video format from the Windows XP era.
- .mpg — MPEG-1 / MPEG-2 Video The original MPEG video file, from Video CDs, DVDs and old digital cameras.
- .m4v — iTunes Video Apple's MP4 variant, used for films and TV episodes bought from iTunes.
- .vtt — WebVTT Caption The W3C caption format HTML5 video uses, essentially SRT with a header and styli
- .swf — Shockwave Flash Movie A Flash animation or game — the plugin that ran these was killed off at the end
Sources
- Media Types Registry — IANA
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place