HandBrake converts video. Give it a file from a phone, camera, screen recorder or an unprotected DVD or Blu-ray, pick a preset for the device you want to play it on, and it produces an MP4, MKV or WebM that plays there. Underneath it uses FFmpeg, x264, x265 and SVT-AV1, so the output is H.264, H.265, AV1, VP9 and more, with control over quality, size, audio tracks, subtitles and chapters.
It has been the default answer to 'how do I make this video smaller' for over twenty years, and it is still maintained, with release 1.11.2 current when scanned and commits landing daily. Presets do most of the work for beginners, batch queues handle whole folders, and hardware encoders on NVIDIA, Intel, AMD and Apple chips make long conversions far faster. A command-line version, HandBrakeCLI, does the same job in scripts.
It is GPLv2, with about 24,800 stars and 172 contributors, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It does not remove copy protection from commercial discs.
- Repository: github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake
- Licence: custom (Other)
- Language: C. Stars: 24.8K. Forks: 1,731. Last push: Oct 26, 2026.
- Scan: safe, Oct 26, 2026, commit 5cec9d3
Who it is for
Anyone who needs to shrink, convert or re-encode video for a phone, TV, website or archive, from people tidying up home videos to creators batch-converting recordings.
Getting started
1. macOS (Homebrew)
brew install --cask handbrake-app2. Windows (winget)
winget install HandBrake.HandBrake3. Linux (Flathub)
flatpak install flathub fr.handbrake.ghbInstallers for every platform are also on handbrake.fr. For the command-line version on macOS, brew install handbrake installs HandBrakeCLI. Start with a preset such as Fast 1080p30 and change one setting at a time.
Safety scan
We cloned HandBrake/HandBrake at commit 5cec9d3 on Oct 26, 2026 and ran the checks described on the GitHub Tools page: credential patterns, decode-and-execute code, install-time scripts, committed binaries, risky CI workflows, every host the code talks to, known vulnerabilities in pinned dependencies, and project hygiene. A person read every hit. This is what we found.
- No secrets, no suspicious code patterns, no install hooks and no committed binaries across 2,367 files and about 285,000 lines of C, C# and Objective-C.
- The roughly 37 libraries HandBrake builds in (FFmpeg, x264, x265, SVT-AV1 and others in contrib/) are downloaded at build time from HandBrake's own mirror or the upstream site, each pinned by a SHA-256 checksum in its module.defs file. There is no lockfile, so the scanner had nothing to check for advisories; library fixes reach you with new HandBrake releases.
- The outside hosts are what you would expect: handbrake.fr for documentation and downloads, gnu.org in licence headers, and upstream project sites for the libraries.
- 7 workflows, none using pull_request_target; the one third-party action is not pinned to a commit. Its OpenSSF Scorecard is 5.9 out of 10, with signed releases scoring 8, held back by workflow token permissions and unpinned dependencies. Security policy, Dependabot and code of conduct present.
What the scanner counted
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| Secrets | None found. |
| Suspicious code | None found. |
| Install-time code | None: nothing runs at install beyond the package manager itself. |
| Committed binaries | None. |
| CI workflows | 7 workflows. None use pull_request_target. 1 of 1 third-party action pinned to a tag rather than a commit. |
| Network hosts | 30 distinct hosts referenced from source; most often handbrake.fr, www.gnu.org, github.com, ftp.gnu.org. No URLs to bare IP addresses. |
| Known vulnerabilities | No lockfile to check: dependencies are declared as ranges, so what gets installed is whatever is current on the day. |
| Project hygiene | Has security policy, automated dependency updates, licence file, contributing guide. Missing CodeQL. |
| OpenSSF Scorecard | 5.9 out of 10, as of Oct 26, 2026. |
By the numbers
| Stars | 24.8K |
|---|---|
| Forks | 1,731 |
| Contributors | 172 |
| Commits | 13.7K |
| Open issues | 267 |
| Open pull requests | 25 |
| Releases | 54 |
| Latest release | 1.11.2 |
| Licence | custom |
| Main language | C |
| Project age | 11 years |
| Last push | Oct 26, 2026 |
| Tracked files | 2,367 |
| Lines of code | 284.6K |
| Checkout size | 33 MB |
Lines by language: C 130K, C# 69.5K, Objective-C 37.2K, C/C++ header 24.5K, JSON 14.4K, Python 3,245.
Questions
Is HandBrake free?
Yes. HandBrake is free and open source under GPLv2, with no ads, watermark or paid version. Download it from handbrake.fr or a package manager, and be wary of sites that charge for it.
Can HandBrake rip DVDs and Blu-rays?
It can convert discs that are not copy-protected. It does not remove copy protection, which most commercial DVDs and Blu-rays use, and doing so is illegal in many countries.
Does HandBrake use my graphics card?
Yes, if you choose a hardware encoder. It supports NVIDIA NVENC, Intel Quick Sync, AMD's encoder and Apple VideoToolbox, which are much faster than the software encoders, at some cost in quality for the same file size.
This post is part of GitHub Tools, where every repository is cloned and scanned before it is written up. The scan is a snapshot of one commit on one day; the repository has moved on since, so check it before you install.