2026 Best Way to Rip DVD on Mac [Smaller Size & High Quality]

Most new models of Mac, such as the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina, no longer come equipped with a disc drive. If you have a collection of classic movie DVDs, you may be wondering how to watch them on your Mac.

One solution is to purchase an external DVD drive. However, bringing an additional accessory with you can be inconvenient. Thus, you may want to know how to rip DVDs to your Mac. This article provides practical solutions for Mac/Macbook users on how to rip DVDs. If you need trustworthy Mac DVD-ripping software, you've come to the right spot.

With Built-in Disk Utility [Unprotected]

Due to Apple having cancelled optical CD drives in MacBooks years ago. If you want to rip DVDs to modern MacBooks, like M3 MacBook Air & Pro, you need an external USB DVD drive so that the device can read the disc contents. We recommend that you choose the original Apple USB SuperDrive or buy a high-end branded product - some third-party optical drives may cause cracks during the ripping process.

Once it's done, connect it to your Mac, then follow the steps below.

Step 1. Find and open Disk Utility [Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility] on your Mac computer.

Step 2. Locate and click on your DVD. Tap "File" on the upper left navigation bar. Choose "New image," then "Image from [disc title]".

Step 3. A pop-up window will appear. Choose Format as "read only" and Encryption as "none", and then click "Save."

Wait for some time, and you will get a ripped .dmg file of your DVD videos on your Mac computer. Then, you can play the .dmg file with VLC or other DVD players like VideoByte Blu-ray Player.

With VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper [Recommend]

As mentioned above, Mac itself falls short when faced with protected DVDs. For example, many commercial DVD/Blu-ray discs are locked by Region Codes that prevent you from playing them in different countries or player drives. Therefore, if you want to rip a protected DVD, you need a professional Mac DVD ripper that can bypass those protections.

VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper is a robust DVD/Blu-ray converter tool that can bypass most protections like APS, CSS, ARccOS, CPRM, AACS, BD+, Cinavia, and Region Codes. You can rip homemade and commercial DVD/Blu-ray discs, VIDEO TS folders, ISO files on Mac to more than 300 mainstream video formats like MP4 and MKV. Besides, it provides a video enhancer for improving the video quality as well as a video editor to personalize content with only a few clicks. Apart from DVDs, it can also help you rip Blu-rays on your Mac computer. (NOTE: The program is only supported to rip protected DVD/Blu-ray for personal use instead of any unfair use.)

Step 1. Load DVDs/Blu-ray DVDs into the DVD Ripper

Put your DVD disc into the DVD drive and click the "+" in the center of the program to begin uploading files.

Step 2. Select Output Video Format

Choose an output format before you start to convert it. Click the drop-down list of the "Rip All to" and go to the "Video" category. Scroll down and select the video format you want. Or you can directly search the format in the search box at the bottom left.

Step 3. Confirm Other Output Parameters and Settings

You can change the default destination folder by clicking the "Save to" at the bottom to reset the destination folder. Also, you can tune other parameters according to your needs.

Step 4. Start to Rip DVDs to Mac

When you're satisfied with all settings, click the "Rip All" button on the main interface to start ripping your DVD to Mac.

You can choose to rip DVDs to MOV format files as it is the default format of QuickTime Player on Macs. But you are also recommended to convert the DVDs to open-source MP4 files for they are compatible with most devices.

Evaluation Feedback:

I have ripped a 90-minute Disney DVD disc into MP4 (H.264) on macOS Sonoma with VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper. It successfully distinguished the main title and took 10 minutes to finish the task, while some old rippers can't pass the Disney 99-title (X-project). I can play the out-of-print movie on my computer finally!

With VLC Media Player [Free]

As you may already know, VLC Player is a powerful open-source free media player. But what you may not know is that it can also help you rip DVD videos on Mac. With VLC Media Player, you can easily rip a DVD to H.264, H.265, MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4, WMV, DIVX, H.263, VP8, MJPEG, Theora, and Dirac. How to rip a DVD with VLC? Download and install VLC Player, and launch it. Connect the external DVD drive to your Mac, and insert the DVD into it. Then, check the following simple guidelines:

Step 1. Open VLC Player, choose "File" and then "Open Disc".

Step 2. From the pop-up "Open Source" window, go to the "Disc" tab. VLC will automatically detect your inserted DVD. Now you need to turn on both the "Disable DVD Menus" and "Stream Output" buttons.

Step 3. Click the "Settings" button to choose the output format you need from the "Encapsulation Method" option.

Step 4. After confirming all settings, click the "Open" button, and VLC will start to copy the DVD videos on your Mac.

VLC Player as a DVD ripper is not available for DVDs with some latest copy protections. If you want to rip encrypted commercial DVDs, we still recommend you try VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper.

Comparison of 3 Tools to Rip DVDs on Mac

Bonus: How to Copy a DVD to a Mac or Another Blank Disc

Ripping DVDs to Mac means you convert the DVD content to files in other formats. But sometimes you may want to copy the content from an original DVD disc to another blank disc. This happens when you borrow a game from your friend, and you want to continue to play it after you return the Game Disc. Then you need to copy the disc to another blank disc.

There is also software for copying DVD content to Mac. We recommend you try the VideoByte DVD Copy, for it can copy your DVD content with 1:1 original quality in just a few steps.

It supports 3 copy modes:

• Copy a DVD to another DVD disc.
• Back up the DVD to your hard drive on Mac as a Video_TS folder or ISO image file.
• Burn ISO image DVD Folder to DVD.

A simple guide to copying DVD content to Mac or another blank disc:

Download, install, and then launch the VideoByte DVD Copy, then follow the instructions as follows:

Step 1. Load the DVD disc. Click on "File" and then "Select Source" to load your DVD disc, ISO image file or DVD folder. Or directly click to expand the "Source" pull-down menu to choose your inserted DVD disc.

Step 2. Confirm the "Target" file format. Choose the blank DVD disc if you want to copy a DVD to another disc.

Step 3. Choose DVD copy mode from "Full Copy", "Main Movie", and "Customize".

Step 4. Decide output options. You can choose to "Remove Menu" or "Skip Menu" here.

Step 5. Click "Start" to copy the DVD.

If you have 2 disc drives and are able to connect them both to your Mac, you can directly insert the original DVD disc into one drive and the blank disc into the other. If you only have 1 disc drive, you need to first copy them as the ISO image file, then burn the created ISO image file to the blank DVD disc.

FAQs of Ripping DVDs on Mac

Conclusion

This article provides easy yet practical solutions for those who don't know how to rip a DVD on a Mac. If you are looking for a DVD to MP4 Ripper on Mac, try the user-friendly VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper. It removes copy protections from DVDs and rips them into files with commonly used video formats.

This ultimate DVD ripper allows you to finish the ripping process in just a few steps and further customize the DVD content with VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper's built-in video enhancer and video editor. Free download and have a try.