Corrupt a Video File Online
Corrupt an MP4, MOV, MKV or AVI video online for free. Destroys the moov atom so no player can index or play the stream.
- No upload
- No size limit
- No sign-up
Corrupt your video file
Tuned for .mp4, .mov, .mkv, .webm, .avi, and works with every other format too.
Why video files are hard to corrupt properly
Video containers are designed to survive damage, a player will skip a broken region and keep going. What no player can survive is losing the index. In MP4 that index is the moov atom, and destroying it makes the file unplayable everywhere.
What this tool destroys
- The ftyp box. The brand identifier at the start of the file is overwritten, so the container type cannot be determined.
- The moov atom. The movie header holding the sample table, timing and codec configuration is destroyed. Without it there is no way to locate a single frame.
- The mdat payload. Entropy is scattered through the media data, so frame-carving recovery tools come back empty.
- Matroska and AVI. MKV and WebM are targeted through their EBML header and segment info; AVI through its RIFF chunk headers and index.
What you will see afterwards
| Application | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| VLC | "Your input can't be opened", VLC is unusually tolerant and still refuses. |
| QuickTime / Windows Media Player | "The file is not a movie file" or an unsupported-format error. |
| YouTube / social uploads | The upload completes and then fails processing. |
| File manager | Generic video icon instead of a preview frame, and no duration shown. |
Common reasons people do this
- Testing how a video platform handles a malformed upload.
- Verifying a transcoding pipeline fails cleanly and reports the reason.
- Producing a realistic damaged recording for a recovery-tool demonstration.
- Checking that a media player surfaces a useful error rather than freezing.
How to corrupt a video file
- Drop your .mp4 file onto the box above, or click to browse.
- Leave the level on Standard unless you want partial damage (Light) or need to defeat recovery software (Heavy).
- Press Corrupt file. Processing happens on your device, so it finishes almost immediately.
- Download the result. It keeps the original filename and byte length by default.
Video FAQ
Will the video still show its duration?
No. Duration lives in the moov atom, which is destroyed. File managers show the correct file size but no duration or resolution.
Can recovery software rebuild it?
At Light level, sometimes partially. At Standard and above the sample table and media payload are both destroyed and nothing meaningful comes back.
Does it handle very large video files?
Yes. Processing runs in 8 MB slices, so multi-gigabyte files are handled without exhausting memory, and since nothing is uploaded, there is no transfer time.
Which containers are supported?
MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, WebM and AVI have dedicated profiles. Anything else falls back to a generic profile that still breaks it.