Combine MP4 files using FFMPEG on Windows (without re-encoding)

If you have lots of MP4 files, which have exactly the same codec and codec parameters, and you want to combine these files to a single MP4 files, you can use FFMPEG to quickly combine these files without re-encoding.

In this article, I will show how to combine MP4 files, which I got from a digital camera, to a single MP4 file without re-encoding using FFMPEG on Windows 10.
Note: The MP4 files must have exactly the same codec and codec parameters in order to combine using this method.

Watch on YouTube

Step-by-step

  1. In this example, I want to combine MP4 files in the C:\Users\Linglom.com\Desktop\2016Y03M29D12H folder.
    Sample MP4 files
  2. Download FFMPEG:
    1. Open web browser to https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com.
    2. Select Builds tab at top menu.
    3. Select download FFMPEG Static.

    Download FFMPEG

  3. When the download finishes, extract the file and open bin folder. You will see ffmpeg.exe which is the file that I will use to combine MP4 files. In this example, I will copy the file to my MP4 folder.
    FFMPEG.exe
  4. Then, right-click Windows icon at bottom left and select Command Prompt.
    Note: You can also press Windows + R keyboard shortcut and type cmd.exe to open command prompt window.
    Open Command Prompt
  5. On Command Prompt window, change path to the folder where you keep MP4 files.
    Change path on Command Prompt
  6. Next, you have to create a text file which has a list of MP4 files that you want to combine by type this command and press Enter.
    (for %i in (*.mp4) do @echo file '%i') > mylist.txt

    You will get mylist.txt in the folder. This file has a list of all MP4 files on this folder.
    List files in the folder to a text file

  7. Then, type this command to begin combine the files using FFMPEG.
    ffmpeg -f concat -i mylist.txt -c copy output.mp4

    The process should be fast because it’s just concatenate the files, not re-encoding. If there is no error message, you will get output.mp4 as a result in the folder.
    Combine MP4 with FFMPEG

12 Comments

  1. Bob Jackson December 27, 2016
  2. Cazaux yves January 2, 2018
  3. bm January 15, 2018
  4. Rohan May 9, 2018
  5. Rohan May 9, 2018
  6. linglom May 10, 2018
  7. Tom F August 16, 2018
  8. hari August 19, 2018
  9. TubeBar September 12, 2018
  10. Ralph Colbeck January 20, 2020
  11. Rob Mundy June 19, 2020
  12. Rob Mundy June 19, 2020

Leave a Reply