My son does a lot of video editing. His friends recommended Wondershare Filmora as being more stable than the other things he’s been using. But he had a problem. It wouldn’t see his MP4 files. If you have a problem with Filmora not recognizing MP4 files, here’s how we fixed it.
Filmora not recognizing or even seeing MP4 files
When he installed Wondershare Filmora, everything seemed fine. And when he ran the program, it pulled up the MP4s that were bundled with the program. But when he clicked the Videos shortcut, it was empty, even though when he pulled up his videos in Windows Explorer, he had hundreds of MP4 files. And I couldn’t just work around it by dragging and dropping from Windows Explorer into Filmora. You have to use Filmora’s file handling, which left us in a Catch-22.
He’s running Windows 11, and the problem may be a slight incompatibility with Windows 11 and the way it handles library directories like Videos, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, and the like.
The workaround I came up with was to not use the videos shortcut. Instead, I navigated to the C drive, then opened Users, then opened his username, then opened Videos. When I navigated that way, all his MP4 files and other media showed up just fine.
So if you have a problem with Filmora not recognizing MP4 files, that’s the workaround. Navigate back to the C drive, then go into your user profile and into the directory you want, rather than trying to use one of the library shortcuts.
And then the magic happened. I only had to do that once. After I’d done that once, those Windows libraries folders like Videos, Downloads, Pictures, and so on just worked fine. It solved the problem with Filmora not seeing any files at all, and being able to import the files we needed. Filmora advertises having wide compatibility with lots of different media, but that doesn’t help much when it can’t even see any files. At least there’s a workaround.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.