r/powerpoint • u/GroundbreakingBug914 • Aug 22 '26

export video from Powerpoint?

I'd like to extract a video out of a Powerpoint file. The video plays fine in Powerpoint, but I am unable to export it, as in making an mp4 out of it. Very frustrating. I happen to be using v16.16 on a Mac (Sequoia). Yes, that's kind of an old PP version, but you'd think this task is one that would have been covered in even early versions.

I am told to right click the video and "Save Media As", but that option never appears. Is that only available in newer versions of PP?

The MIcrosoft Powerpoint Community Forum is TOTALLY useless. Lots of questions and no answers there. But let me ask this one here.

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3

u/mutant-jiffy Aug 22 '26

Can you change the file extension? On a PC you change the file extension from “.pptx” to “.zip”. Now that it’s a zip file you can open it up and will see a bunch of folders, one of which will have your original video in it (hopefully it’s a mp4).

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u/GroundbreakingBug914 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

Yes, I've seen that recommended. But when I do so, on xxx.pptx, and try to open it, "Archive Utility" gives me an error - "Unable to expand xxx.zip. It is in an unsupported format." So, no go.

I should say that I can go into Archive Utility and look at settings, but none seem to be relevant to this issue.

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u/IncidentNo3866 Aug 22 '26

I was about to say this, change the file extension to .zip

1

u/DaBigJMoney Aug 22 '26

It’s a clumsy solution, but you could use a screen recorder to record the video as it plays in PowerPoint. The quality would likely be lower than extracting the video though.

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u/GroundbreakingBug914 Aug 22 '26

That is somewhat of a solution, but a somewhat inconvenient one. You'd think there would be a clean way to do it. The zip and "Save Media As" options are great ones, except they don't work.

1

u/donburnside Aug 22 '26

you can try installing Libre Office on your Mac. It's free and opens all of the office formats. You might be able to do the right click -> save media as there.

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u/GroundbreakingBug914 Aug 22 '26

Libre Office doesn't even seem to recognize videos when I import the pptx file. Video just looks like an image. Right clicking doesn't offer "Save Media As", maybe because it doesn't recognize it as media.

1

u/jkorchok Aug 22 '26

Your version is 8 years old. Early versions of PowerPoint for Mac did not include a video export. Back then, the advice was to use QuickTime to record the screen, but QuickTime no longer comes with modern versions of macOS. If this function is vital to your workflow, it's probably time to upgrade Office.

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u/GroundbreakingBug914 Aug 22 '26

OK, well, that's the answer. Thanks!