macOS

freemkv runs natively on macOS as a single static binary.

Install / how to run

Download the macOS build (Intel or Apple Silicon) from the Download page, make it executable, and run it:

mv freemkv-* freemkv && chmod +x freemkv
./freemkv --version

File locations

What	Path
AACS keys	see Decryption Keys
Diagnostic log	off by default (see below)

The CLI keeps the terminal clean and never writes a log unless asked. Run with --log-level 3 to write ./log.txt in the current directory, or --log-file PATH to choose the destination.

Device / drive access

freemkv obtains exclusive access to the optical drive through IOKit. To do so it unmounts the disc first, so the drive is freed for direct reads while ripping. Optical drives appear as /dev/diskN devices.

Known quirks / troubleshooting

• If the disc is mounted by the Finder, freemkv unmounts it to take exclusive access; that’s expected.
• For capturing logs and other common fixes, see Troubleshooting.