Convert video files into WhatsApp compatible format

_INSTALL.md

Convert Video File To WhatsApp Compatible Format

This script uses ffmpeg to convert video files to a WhatsApp compatible format. Will also compress the size down making it more suitable.

Install

Ensure you have ffmpeg installed:

$ brew install ffmpeg

Install the script into a directory on $PATH

$ wget -O ~/.local/bin/whatsapp_video_convert https://gist.githubusercontent.com/nc9/995d37289e55017dd06ee35e95970236/raw/c72eb31f4bddc66c0edcb45ad73c48ee6a713dd0/whatsapp_video_convert.sh
$ chmod +x ~/.local/bin/whatsapp_video_convert 
$ whatsapp_video_convert test_video.mp4

whatsapp_video_convert.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Check if the input video path is provided
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "Please provide the path to the input video."
  exit 1
fi

input_video="$1"
input_dir=$(dirname "$input_video")
input_file=$(basename "$input_video")
output_file="${input_file%.*}_out.mp4"
output_video="$input_dir/$output_file"

# Check if FFmpeg is installed
if ! command -v ffmpeg &> /dev/null; then
  echo "FFmpeg is not installed. Please install FFmpeg and try again."
  exit 1
fi

# Convert the video using FFmpeg
ffmpeg -i "$input_video" -c:v libx264 -profile:v baseline -level 3.0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -s 640x360 -r 30 -b:v 1M -c:a aac -b:a 96k -ar 44100 -strict -2 "$output_video"

echo "Video formatted for WhatsApp: $output_video"