Vidp

A minimal, keyboard-driven macOS video player built on libmpv, written in Swift/AppKit. No Electron, no bloat — just a fast native player that plays nearly anything mpv can.

brew tap mdopeace/vidp
brew install --cask vidp

Installs vidp.app to /Applications. The --cask flag is optional — plain brew install vidp finds it too.

There is no manual copy step and no compiler: a cask writes to /Applications directly, and the app bundles its own libmpv and FFmpeg, so brew install mpv is not needed to run it.

To update to a newer release:

brew update && brew upgrade vidp

Then launch:

open /Applications/vidp.app

Or let the app update itself with Check for Updates. Both routes install the same build, and Homebrew tracks its own record of the installed version, so that record can fall out of step with an in-app update. brew reinstall --cask vidp re-points it at the tap's version — which rolls the app back if the tap hasn't published that version yet, so check brew info --cask vidp first if you just updated in-app. After an in-app update is installed, choose Restart to use it immediately or Later to keep using the current session and restart when convenient.

Apple Silicon only. Releases are arm64, so the prebuilt binary won't run on Intel. Build from source below if you need x86_64.

Because libmpv and FFmpeg are bundled, an update ships a new copy of them — expect a ~25 MB download per upgrade.

Releases before 0.13.0 shipped a formula, which installed under opt/ and asked you to copy the app into /Applications by hand. This tap now ships a cask.

On Homebrew 5.0.6+ brew update migrates the formula to the cask for you. It fails if a copy is already sitting in /Applications — exactly what the old manual step left behind — and the old formula keg keeps mpv pinned as a dependency. Remove both first:

rm -rf /Applications/vidp.app
brew uninstall --formula vidp
brew install --cask vidp

Requires Homebrew, Xcode Command Line Tools (swiftc, sips), and libmpv:

brew install mpv
./scripts/build.sh        # produces ./vidp.app
open vidp.app

• macOS 13+ (Apple Silicon for prebuilt releases; Intel can build from source)

Building from source additionally needs Homebrew, the Xcode Command Line Tools, and libmpv (brew install mpv). Release builds bundle libmpv into the app itself, so end users need none of this.

• Native AppKit UI rendering video via mpv/OpenGL
• Homepage navigation for Recently Watched, Home, Movies, TV Shows, and Others
• Compact, scroll-free native settings sidebar with bounded numeric controls
• Keyboard-driven controls and a minimal on-screen HUD, with a full-window paused title overlay after 10 seconds of inactivity
• Now-playing integration with macOS MediaPlayer
• Supports common video formats: mp4, m4v, mov, mkv, webm, avi
• Reads media from files or the Finder ("Open With")
• Check for updates via GitHub API (automatic on launch + manual menu item)
• Uninstall support with full cleanup or app-only removal

• The app is ad-hoc signed, not notarized. Cask installs strip the quarantine attribute automatically, so they open normally; a .zip you download and unzip by hand needs xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/vidp.app (or right-click → Open) on first launch.
• macOS asks for permission the first time you open a video from Desktop, Documents or Downloads. Choose Allow, or playback will silently sit there doing nothing until you do. Files elsewhere aren't affected.
• Contributions and issues are welcome, but main is branch-protected — please open a pull request.

MIT © 2026 Md Mostafijur Rahman.

This project links against libmpv, which remains under its own LGPL/GPL license. Release builds ship copies of libmpv, FFmpeg and their dependencies inside the app bundle; see LICENSES.md for those, and note that rubberband, x264 and x265 are GPL-2.0-or-later, which puts the distributed app under GPL terms.

• Homepage: https://mdopeace.github.io/vidp/
• Homebrew tap: mdopeace/homebrew-vidp
• Releases: https://github.com/mdopeace/vidp/releases

Changes ship to Homebrew users as versioned releases, not per-commit. To cut a release, run the Release workflow from the Actions tab. Pick a Patch/Minor/ Major bump, or type an exact version to override the bump. The run reads the current version from Info.plist and handles the full flow: version bump via PR, tag, build on a macOS runner, GitHub Release, then the Homebrew tap cask.

From the terminal, gh workflow run release.yml -f bump=minor does the same.

One-time setup: the workflow pushes to the tap using the repository secret HOMEBREW_TAP_TOKEN (Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions). It needs write access to mdopeace/homebrew-vidp — the default GITHUB_TOKEN cannot reach another repo, so without it the release publishes and only the tap update fails.

Users then update with brew update && brew upgrade vidp.