How to Play .SRT Files on a Mac

You can add subtitles to movies.

SRT files are external subtitle files for use with digital video files. By default, Mac's native video application, QuickTime, will not play these subtitle files. A free third-party extension is needed to load the SRT file so that you can read text during a movie. Once installed, QuickTime will automatically play the subtitles, so long as the file is properly formatted.

Things You'll Need

• QuickTime player
• Perian QuickTime plug-in

Instructions

1. Download and install the latest version of QuickTime from Apple's QuickTime site. See Resources for a direct link.

2. Download and install the Perian QuickTime plug-in. Perian is a free preference pane that allows QuickTime to handle a number of different file formats that the application cannot handle out of the box, SRT subtitle files included.

3. Open "System Preferences" via the Apple menu. Click "Perian." Make sure the option "Load external subtitles" is checked. Close the Preferences window.

4. Move the movie file and the SRT subtitle file to the same folder.

5. Rename the movie file and the SRT file so that they both have the same name, pre-extension. For example, if the movie file is named video.mov, the SRT file must be named video.srt.

6. Double-click the movie file to open it with QuickTime. If you have more than one video player installed on your computer, command-click the movie file and select "Open With... > QuickTime." QuickTime will load the movie with the subtitles.

References

• MacWorld: Mac OS X Hints - QuickTime Player and Subtitles
• Apple: QuickTime
• Perian: Details

Resources

• Perian: Download
• Apple: QuickTime Download