Free Guide: Rip a DVD on Windows 11/10 and Mac in 2026

I used to have shelves overflowing with DVDs, but when I upgraded to a modern laptop, I realized I couldn't even play them anymore. If you want to watch your favorite movies on the go without carrying bulky discs, digitizing them is the perfect solution. In this guide, we'll show you how to easily rip DVDs on Windows 10/11 and Mac, so you can enjoy your classic collection anytime, anywhere.

• Part 1. Important Tips to Rip DVDs on Mac and Windows
• Part 2. How to Free Rip a DVD on Windows 10
• Part 3. How to Free Rip a DVD on Mac
• Part 4. FAQs of Ripping DVDs on Mac and Windows

Part 1. Important Tips to Rip DVDs on Mac and Windows

In order to rip a DVD to PC or Mac successfully, you have to learn more about the DVD itself beforehand. The size of the DVD, the conversion speed, the protection and region code are all important things to extract videos from a DVD.

1. Extracted Video Size for a DVD

Unlike a CD, a DVD takes more storage space. A CD, for example, has a storage capacity of only about 700MB. A single-sided DVD can store 4.7GB to 8.5GB data, and the double-sided DVD has 9.4GB to 17.08GB storage. When ripping a DVD to your hard drive, you should check the destination and make sure it has enough space to store the DVD movies.

2. Estimated Time to Rip a DVD

Usually, there is an estimated time within the DVD ripper. Actually, it takes a longer time to rip a DVD than rip a CD. However, how much you spend on DVD ripping depends on your situation. A 500 MHz PC, for example, may require 24 hours to turn a DVD to digital videos, while it only takes 3 to 4 hours to complete it.

3. Protection and Region Code

Most of the DVD rippers might not support DVDs with protection. If you rented some DVD online or purchased DVD from Amazon, the free tools might not work for you. Have another check for the region code for the DVD should be another important thing to rip a DVD. The DVD player is not able to read the DVD from a different region code.

4. Choose a Suitable DVD Ripper

The DVD ripper is the last and most significant factor. It determines not only the output quality, but also about the times it takes. So, finding the best DVD ripping software for your computer almost determines the result and the whole DVD ripping experience.

Part 2. How to Free Rip a DVD on Windows 10

When you need to extract the videos from a DVD for free, Blu-ray Master Free DVD Ripper is one of the best choices to rip a DVD on Windows 11/10/8/7. It is capable of ripping DVDs to any video or audio format with ease, including MP4, MKV, MOV, FLV, H.265, etc. Moreover, there are some advanced video editing features, to crop the video, applying video effects, adding a watermark, and more.

Key Features:

• Rip a DVD to more than 200 output formats, such as MP4, AVI, etc.
• Support DVD discs.
• Advanced acceleration technology with CUDA and AMD acceleration.
• Integrate extensive custom options and settings for advanced users.

Step 1. Load the DVD movies into the program

Put a DVD into your optical disc drive and make sure the DVD drive is able to read the disc. Download and install the free DVD ripper on your Windows PC. Launch the program and click the 'Load DVD' button on the top ribbon to add movies from your DVD. Then all DVD movies will appear as thumbnails in the library area.

Step 2. Preview and further edit DVD movies

Select a movie in the library area and preview it with the built-in media player on the right side. Of course, you can simply get the main movie for the DVD to the size of the videos. Hit the Edit icon to open the video editor window, where you can crop the video frame, adjust video effects and do others.

Step 3. Rip videos from DVD on Windows

After editing, go back to the home interface, check all movies you want to rip, and locate the bottom area. Click and expand the Output Format drop-down list and select your favorite video format, such as MP4, or the target device. Next, click the folder icon and set a specific directory to store the DVD movies. Finally, click the Rip All button to rip the DVD disc.

Note: If you are using CUDA or AMD graphic card, the advanced hardware acceleration technology will convert the DVD to digital videos with fast speed. You can check the estimated time within the program easily.

In my testing, Blu-ray Master Free DVD Ripper took about 35 minutes for a standard 2GB DVD. Its speed is decent. With the advanced decryption technologies, you can convert any DVD to digital formats for easy playback and backup. Have a try!

Part 3. How to Free Rip a DVD on Mac

MakeMKV is a powerful disc conversion tool dedicated to 1:1 lossless extraction. Its core strength lies in exceptional decryption capabilities, enabling direct bypassing of most commercial DVD and Blu-ray discs 'copy protection (DRM). During conversion, it preserves all original audiovisual data without applying any quality-damaging secondary compression, seamlessly packaging video, multi-channel audio, subtitles, and chapter structure into an MKV file at extremely fast speeds (depending solely on your optical drive's read speed). This makes it the ideal choice for audiophiles seeking high-quality media archiving or Plex system setup.

HandBrake is a highly feature-rich, open-source, cross-platform tool for video transcoding and compression. Unlike MakeMKV, it excels at file optimisation and compatibility with multiple formats. It not only converts DVDs to more versatile formats such as MP4, MKV, or WebM but also includes extensive preset configurations for devices like iPhones, Android phones, and TVs. Users can fine-tune video bitrates, apply deinterlacing, adjust frame rates, and achieve efficient compression.

Both MakeMKV and HandBrake allow you to easily rip DVDs on Mac computers. However, the only drawback of MakeMKV is that the exported MKV files are large.

HandBrake itself does not have the capability to decrypt encrypted discs; direct playback of commercial encrypted DVDs requires integration with a third-party decoding library (e.g., libdvdcss). Therefore, using MakeMKV to decrypt the DVD, followed by converting the format and reducing file size with HandBrake, is the optimal approach.

Now, let's see how to use these two tools to rip DVDs on Mac.

Step 1. Download and install MakeMKV from its official website. Open it on your computer. Under the Source section, load your DVD movie.

Step 2. After loading the DVD, choose the titles, audio tracks, and subtitles based on your needs. Then, set a destination folder and click Make MKV to start the ripping process.

Step 3. Next, open HandBrake and click Open Source to load the ripped MKV file.

Step 4. Then, choose the Format as MP4 under the Summary section. Lastly, set a download folder at the bottom and click Start Encode to begin the conversion and compression process.

These two tools are all free for you to use. The steps are easy and intuitive. With the rich presets in HandBrake, you can convert ripped videos to other formats that are compatible with different devices. If you already have them on your Mac, this combination is your best choice for lossless DVD ripping.

Part 4. FAQs of Ripping DVDs on Mac and Windows

• Can I rip a copy protected DVD?

  Yes, you’d better use a professional DVD ripper to rip copy protected DVDs since most common tools like HandBrake can’t do that. DVD Ripper can well convert DVD to digital video formats with high quality

• What is the best free DVD ripper?

  Blu-ray Master Free DVD Ripper is the best and most wonderful free DVD ripper, which can help users rip DVD disc, DVD folder, ISO files to videos like MP4, MKV, MOV, AVI, WMV and even the high definition HD MP4, HD MKV, etc. with fast speed and excellent quality. It is safe and easy to use. It is safe to download this freeware and rip them easily on Windows 10/8/7/XP, perfect the video effect with the powerful parameters settings and edit functions.

• Can I convert DVD to MP4?

  To convert a DVD to MP4 video file, you can choose a DVD ripper to help you do that. Then, you can stream your converted video to the YouTube, Facebook or other platforms.

• How do I rip a DVD video to MKV?

  You can use HandBrake, an open source and well-known DVD ripper, to rip your DVDs Blu-ray to MKV. Here you need to note that HandBrake can convert to DVD in MP4(.M4V) and MKV formats, so if you want to rip a DVD to other formats, Blu-ray Master Free DVD Ripper can help you free rip DVDs to any format.

• What is the best free and safe alternative to HandBrake for ripping encrypted DVDs on Windows 11?

  MakeMKV is the best alternative, which can effortlessly decrypt and extract protected DVDs.

• Why does VLC Media Player keep crashing when I try to convert a DVD to digital on macOS?

  Because it struggles to bypass complex DVD copy protections on macOS. Its conversion engine is also highly prone to memory leaks and resource overload during heavy transcoding. Maybe MakeMKV and HandBrake are better and more professional choices for you to convert DVDs.

• Is MakeMKV still free to use, and how do I compress its huge MKV output files using HandBrake?

  Yes. You can get MakeMKV activation keys from its official forum regularly. You can control the Constant Quality (RF) slider in HandBrake to reduce file size.

Conclusion

The article shares 2 workable methods about how to rip a DVD on Windows 10 and Mac. In order to convert the DVD discs into digital formats, you have to learn more about the DVDs, the video size for the output, the conversion speed, the protection and more. Moreover, you should also find the best DVD ripper on Windows and Mac to rip a DVD with ease.