Leah

Leah Support

Leah is a video player for the Mac. This page answers common questions. For more, choose Help > Leah Help in the app.

Open a video

• Click Open a video in the Leah window, or choose File > Open.
• Drag a video from the Finder onto the Leah window.
• In the Finder, Control-click a video, then choose Open With > Leah.

Leah plays one video at a time. Opening another video replaces the one that’s playing.

To have videos open in Leah when you double-click them, click Make Leah your default video player at the bottom of the start screen, and confirm when macOS asks. You can change it back in the Finder: select a video, choose File > Get Info, choose another app under “Open with”, then click Change All.

Play and move through a video

• Play or pause: click the video, or press the Space bar.
• Skip 5 seconds: press the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key.
• Jump to any point: drag along the timeline. Hold the pointer over the timeline to preview that point first.
• Change the volume: drag the volume slider, or press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key. Click the speaker to mute. Leah remembers the volume.

The controls hide while the video plays. Move the pointer over the video to show them again.

Subtitles

To choose subtitles, click the Subtitles button in the controls, or choose Playback > Subtitles. Choose Off to hide them.

When a video opens, Leah shows the subtitles the file marks to be shown. Otherwise, if the file has subtitles in your Mac’s preferred language, Leah shows those. You set your preferred language in System Settings > General > Language & Region.

Leah shows SRT, ASS/SSA, WebVTT and MP4 text subtitles, and PGS and VobSub picture subtitles.

Formats Leah plays

Leah plays MP4, MOV and M4V files, and other videos your Mac can play. It also plays MKV (Matroska) and WebM files with:

• Video: H.264, HEVC (H.265), MPEG-2 and MPEG-1, VP9 on Macs with Apple silicon, and AV1 on Macs with Apple M3 or later.
• Audio: Dolby TrueHD in up to 7.1 channels, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS in up to 5.1 channels, AAC, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Opus, PCM, MP3 and MP2.
• Subtitles: SRT, ASS/SSA, WebVTT, PGS and VobSub.

Vorbis audio, DTS Express commentary tracks, and VP8 and MPEG-4 Part 2 (Xvid and DivX) video aren’t supported. See Formats Leah plays for details.

If a video won’t play or has no sound

The video plays, but there’s no sound. The audio may be in a format Leah can’t play, such as Vorbis or a DTS Express commentary track. Leah then plays the video without sound. Also check that your Mac’s volume is up and that sound is going to the output you expect. See MKV has no sound on Mac.

Leah shows “This file can’t be played”. The file may use a video format Leah doesn’t support, such as VP8, or AV1 on a Mac older than Apple M3. The file may also be damaged or incomplete, for example if it didn’t finish downloading.

Contact

To report a problem or ask a question, open an issue at github.com/tausifcreates/Leah/issues. Please include your macOS version and, if a video won’t play, what kind of file it is.

See also the Leah FAQ and the Leah Privacy Policy.