If you want to play media files on your iPad such as: MP4, MOV, MKV, WMV, etc. You will need to download a video player.
Whether you want to play these files from your iPad directly or from external storage I know just the app that will get the job done.
These video player apps are free of charge.
1. Infuse Video Player
You can download Infuse here. It’s Free.
Infuse is my number one pick for several reasons.
- You can play your media files from a flash drive, hard drive, or cloud storages (Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, etc.) You don’t need to transfer your files to your iPad, iPhone, Mac or Apple TV.
- It supports most of the formats: MP4, MKV, M4V, MOV, BDMV, DIVX, DVDMEDIA, etc.
- It works on iPad, iPhone, Mac and even Apple TV
I had a movie on my flash drive that was connected to my iPad I couldn’t open it until I downloaded Infude. I didn’t even have to transfer the media files to my iPad I just opened up the movie directly from my external hard drive with Infuse Video Player and it started to play.
Open up the file you want to play > press on the share button > press on more button > find Infuse.
And here’s me watching Zootopia from my iPad.
I didn’t transfer the movie to my iPad, the movie was stored on my hard drive, and it was playing without any interruptions. Infusion allows you to stream movies directly from other storage units. Other media players don’t allow that. Hence it’s in the first position as the best video player for iPads in my article.
2. PlayerXtreme
You can also get PlayerXtreme on the App Store free of charge.
It’s a good video player for your iPad, but not as good as “Infuse” since it’s a bit slower. It plays the movies great, without lags, and with great sound, but if you want to play movies from a hard drive, flash drive, or iCloud storage it takes time to buffer. I opened up a movie from my hard drive it took around 2 minutes until it started playing, other than that it worked perfectly.
Overall, PlayerXtreme is a good video player for iPad, that gets the job done. It support multiple media files, multiple devices and can even play those files from external storages.
3. VLC Media Player
I found VLC on the app store. I had a movie, “Moana” that I wanted to watch that was on my USB flash drive. I still couldn’t open the movie from the flash drive.
You have to move the MVK file to your iPad. VLC won’t play it from the cloud, flash drive, hard drive, etc. It will only play the file if it’s stored on your iPad directly. After I moved the movie “Moana” to “On My iPad”. it started to play.
The quality was good, the sound was good, no complaints. It gets the job done, if you can’t open MKV files on your iPad, download VLC. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that I had to transfer my movies to my iPad, I couldn’t watch them directly from my flash drive, cloud drive, or hard drive.
How To Transfer Movies From Mac To iPad
If you want to transfer movies to iPad from Mac I suggest AirDrop. It’s the fastest way, you don’t need any wires no apps, just locate the file on your MacBook.
Once you’ve located the file, right-click on it or click the “Share” option in your Mac’s menu. Choose “AirDrop” as the Sharing Method.
On your iPad, make sure it’s unlocked and ready to receive the file.
Your MacBook will now search for nearby AirDrop devices. When your iPad appears, select it as the destination for the movie file.
A notification will appear on your iPad, asking if you want to accept the file. Confirm to start the transfer.
I transferred a movie from my Mac to my iPad in less than a minute. It was around 2 GB big.
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I'm a writer and editor in iPads & Android Tablets, Windows Tablet section. I'm passionate about technology, especially about tablets. I'm on a mission to assist people in discovering their ideal tablets. In addition, I'm dedicated to producing helpful how-to guides and sharing top-notch tips and tricks. In my early carrier I founded and became and editor at worldoftablet and have been a guest author at many other tech blogs. In wolfoftablet I'm focusing on iPads, Tablets, Apple Pencil, Apps, Reviews, Buyers Guides and Tablet Accessories. In free time I like to play games on my PS5 or iOS.
