FFmpeg MCP

The MCP server is a wrapper around the FFmpeg binary, so FFmpeg must be installed separately on your operating system before installing the Python package.

# macOS
brew install ffmpeg

# Windows
winget install FFmpeg

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg

Install the package using pip or uv. The uv approach is recommended for isolated environments and faster installs.

# Using pip
pip install ffmpeg-mcp-lite

# Using uv
uv pip install ffmpeg-mcp-lite

Add the FFmpeg MCP server to your client configuration. Use uvx to run the package in an isolated environment. Optionally set FFMPEG_OUTPUT_DIR to control where output files are saved.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ffmpeg": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ffmpeg-mcp-lite"],
      "env": {
        "FFMPEG_OUTPUT_DIR": "/Users/you/Downloads"
      }
    }
  }
}

If you use Claude Code, you can register the server with a single command instead of editing the config file manually.

claude mcp add ffmpeg uvx ffmpeg-mcp-lite

The server exposes eight ffmpeg_ prefixed tools: ffmpeg_get_info (media metadata via ffprobe), ffmpeg_convert (format/codec conversion), ffmpeg_compress (file size reduction), ffmpeg_trim (extract a time range), ffmpeg_extract_audio (isolate audio track), ffmpeg_extract_frames (capture still images), ffmpeg_merge (concatenate videos), and ffmpeg_add_subtitles (hardcode subtitle overlays).

If FFmpeg is not on your PATH, specify exact binary locations using environment variables in your MCP client config.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ffmpeg": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ffmpeg-mcp-lite"],
      "env": {
        "FFMPEG_PATH": "/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg",
        "FFPROBE_PATH": "/usr/local/bin/ffprobe",
        "FFMPEG_OUTPUT_DIR": "/tmp/ffmpeg-output"
      }
    }
  }
}