Playing MP4 videos on Elementary OS

If you have reached this post, you probably know what I’m talking about. But let’s pretend you have no idea about it: Elementary OS is an operating system based on Ubuntu Linux. It’s beautiful, inspiring, free and open source; but that also means some proprietary stuff cannot be shipped with it for legal reasons.

That’s the case for playing MP4 videos with Elementary OS. If you try to watch a .mp4 file with the Videos app, you’ll get a black screen. You need to download some extra stuff before and agree to the terms. It’s easy, though. Just open Terminal and type:

sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

You’ll need to put your password and hit the Arrow Keys to read the terms, and hit Tab and Enter to select and agree to it. After that process is completed, just open your video file again and it’ll be playing effortlessly. No need to download ugly VLC.

MP4 video playing on Elementary OS

That’s all for today!