'ffmpeg' is not recognized as an internal or external command

# 'ffmpeg' is not recognized as an internal or external command

The error "'ffmpeg' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file" occurs for 2 main reasons:

1. Not having ffmpeg installed on your Windows machine.
2. Not having ffmpeg added to your user's PATH environment variable.

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'ffmpeg' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

The term 'ffmpeg' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.

To download and install FFmpeg on Windows:

1. Open the FFmpeg downloads page, select the Windows logo and click on "Windows builds from gyan.dev".

2. In the "git master builds" section, download the ffmpeg-git-full version for the latest release.

3. Open your downloads directory, right-click on the ffmpeg.7z file, hover over 7-Zip and click on "Extract Here".

4. Rename the output directory to ffmpeg.

5. Copy the ffmpeg directory to Local Disk (C:), or in other words C:\.

The next step is to add the path to the ffmpeg executable file to your user's PATH environment variable.

The ffmpeg.exe file is located in the bin directory in the ffmpeg folder.

# Add the path to ffmpeg.exe to your user's PATH environment variable

To add the path to the ffmpeg executable to your user's PATH environment variable:

1. Click on the Search bar and type "environment variables".
2. Click on "Edit the system environment variables".

3. Click on the "Environment Variables" button.

4. In the "User variables for YOUR_USER" section, select the "Path" variable and click "Edit".

5. You can either click "New" and then "Browse" and navigate to the path where ffmpeg.exe is located or paste it directly.

If you pasted your ffmpeg folder in Local Disk (C:), then your path should be the following.

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C:\ffmpeg\bin

When you issue ffmpeg commands, you are effectively using the ffmpeg.exe file.

6. Once the path is added, confirm the changes by clicking on the "OK" button twice.

7. Close your Command prompt application and then reopen it.

You might also have to restart your PC, but that's not always necessary.

Open a new Command Prompt and run the ffmpeg -version command to make sure everything works as expected.

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ffmpeg -version

Alternatively, you can install ffmpeg using Chocolatey.

# Install FFmpeg on Windows using Chocolatey

To install FFmpeg on Windows if you have Chocolatey installed:

1. Click on the Search bar and type PowerShell.

2. Right-click on the PowerShell application and click "Run as administrator".

3. Run the following command to install ffmpeg.

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choco install ffmpeg -y

To install Chocolatey:

1. Open PowerShell as an administrator.

2. Run the following command.

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Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

3. Wait for the command to complete.
4. Type choco to make sure Chocolatey is installed.

Now that you have Chocolatey installed, run the following command to install ffmpeg.

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choco install ffmpeg -y

Note that your shell should still be run using elevated permissions.

Now you should be able to use the ffmpeg command.

Click on the Search bar, type "cmd" and start the Command Prompt application.

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ffmpeg -version

# Conclusion

To solve the error "'ffmpeg' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file", make sure:

1. You have ffmpeg installed on your Windows machine.
2. You have ffmpeg added to your user's PATH environment variable.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

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• 'cat' is not recognized as an internal or external command
• 'eval' is not recognized as an internal or external command
• 'export' is not recognized as an internal or external command
• 'choco' is not recognized as an internal or external command
• 'composer' is not recognized as an internal or external command