How to build mpv & mpv.app on an Apple silicon Mac

readme.md

Preparations

Before you can build mpv & mpv.app on an Apple silicon Mac, there's a couple of required dependencies you'll need to install if you haven't already:

1. Go to System Preferences > Software Update. If there's anything there to update, do it.

2. If you don't have the Xcode Command Line Tools installed, run xcode-select --install and select Install on the prompt that appears.

3. If you don't have Homebrew installed, follow the instructions here.

4. If you don't have all of mpv's dependencies installed, run brew install --build-from-source --only-dependencies mpv && brew install libplacebo.

You'll also need a local copy of the mpv repo, which you can get by running git clone https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv.

You can now run the attached script to build mpv & mpv.app on an Apple silicon Mac yourself. Just make sure to run it from the root directory of the cloned repo.

Static Build

If you want to bundle a static build of mpv.app, perform these steps following the ones above.

1. Run brew install dylibbundler.

2. Run the script from the root directory of the cloned repo, but append --static to the command, like ./build-mpv_silicon.sh --static.

---

Updating

Going forward, you can update your local copy of the repo by running the following commands from its root directory:

git reset --hard
git clean --force -d -x
git pull origin master

build-mpv_silicon.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Builds mpv & mpv.app on Apple silicon Macs.
# Run this script from the root directory of the mpv repo.

# if anything fails, gtfo
set -ex

meson setup build
meson compile -C build
# test the binary we just built
./build/mpv --version

./TOOLS/osxbundle.py --skip-deps build/mpv
if [[ $1 == "--static" ]]; then
	dylibbundler --bundle-deps --dest-dir build/mpv.app/Contents/MacOS/lib/ --install-path @executable_path/lib/ --fix-file build/mpv.app/Contents/MacOS/mpv
	# test the app binary to make sure all the dylibs made it okay
	./build/mpv.app/Contents/MacOS/mpv --version
fi

change the mpv repo in my script to their git head

I can't understand what you're saying. If you explain exactly what I need to do or what I need to download, I'm already using your script.
I have compiled mpv with your script after the updates released a few days ago on Homebrew for ffmpeg (version 8) and mpv, which had made my previous mpv non-functional.
Now mpv works, I don't understand how your suggestion can help me in the future, with other homebrew updates, to avoid it breaking again and always requiring a new compilation

Is there any update to the script? I am getting an error when compiling using --static.

Is there any update to the script? I am getting an error when compiling using --static.

there's no need for this script anymore because you can download it directly now

cli - brew install mpv
gui - https://nightly.link/mpv-player/mpv/workflows/build/master

Is there any update to the script? I am getting an error when compiling using --static.

there's no need for this script anymore because you can download it directly now

cli - brew install mpv gui - nightly.link/mpv-player/mpv/workflows/build/master

brew install mpv (the formula) only installs the CLI binary — no .app bundle, no Spotlight. You need the cask version for that.

Instead:
brew install --cask mpv

gui - https://nightly.link/mpv-player/mpv/workflows/build/master

I get strange washed out colors on video on my external USB-C SDR monitor when using git head and this nightly build. Everything is fine with v0.41.0 stable release from Dec 21, 2025, so maybe a bug in the dev branch. Anyone else seeing this?