If Homebrew is already installed, skip to "Install FFmpeg" below.
Launch Terminal in macOS, located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app. To install a bundle of command-line tools provided by Apple, paste the following line into the terminal window and press return. When prompted, click "Install," then "Agree."
xcode-select --install
Run the following command to install the Homebrew package manager. Enter your password at the prompt to proceed.
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Next, enter this command to update Homebrew.
brew update
If Homebrew returns an error, enter the following command to give it the permissions it expects.
sudo chown $(whoami):admin /usr/local && sudo chown -R $(whoami):admin /usr/local
First, run the following command to remove FFmpeg in case it's already installed.
brew uninstall --force --ignore-dependencies ffmpeg
Now let's install the required compilation utilities and media codecs.
brew install automake fdk-aac git lame libass libtool libvorbis libvpx opus sdl shtool texi2html theora wget x264 xvid yasm
Next we'll download FFmpeg's source code and compile it before installing. Although it's faster to install FFmpeg through Homebrew, that version can't read or write MP3 files.
Enter the following commands one at a time; note that the third line is very long. After the last command you will be prompted to enter your admin password.
git clone http://source.ffmpeg.org/git/ffmpeg.git ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid
make && sudo make install
The final step above will take 5 or 10 minutes to complete. When it's done, open a new terminal window and enter the following to view FFmpeg's manual.
man ffmpeg
If you've made it this far, you should be all set. Press q to close the manual.
Here's a basic FFmpeg command to convert a file called input.wav on your desktop to a 320Kbps MP3 called output.mp3.
cd ~/Desktop
ffmpeg -i input.wav -ab 320k output.mp3
The configure line doesn't work for me with my current setup (Apple Silicon, 04/2024, master branch of FFmpeg). The configure script doesn't find the required libraries installed with Brew.
It might well be a particular problem with my setup, but in case anyone else hits the same problem, here is the configure line that works for me: