Does Safari Support AV1 Video on macOS 13?

Safari does not natively support AV1 video decoding out of the box in macOS 13 (Ventura). Although the AV1 codec is an open-source standard widely adopted by major streaming platforms, Apple did not integrate full system-level or browser-level native decoding for AV1 during the macOS 13 lifecycle. As a result, standard Safari installations on macOS 13 cannot decode or play AV1-encoded streams without third-party workarounds or falling back to older codecs like VP9 or H.264.

The Limitation of Core Media in macOS 13

Safari relies directly on macOS’s underlying media engine, Core Media, to handle video playback. In macOS 13, Core Media did not include native AV1 software decoders, nor did any Mac hardware released during that period feature dedicated AV1 hardware decoding. Because Safari delegates media tasks directly to the operating system rather than embedding internal software decoders, it is incapable of processing AV1 video natively in this environment.

Experimental Flags in Safari

Users navigating Safari's developer settings on macOS 13 may notice an experimental feature flag labeled for AV1 decoding. However, toggling this flag generally does not enable playback. In macOS 13, this flag acted as a placeholder for ongoing WebKit development and lacked the functional decoder backend needed to render AV1 streams successfully.

When Apple Introduced AV1 Support

Official native AV1 support was introduced later, starting with macOS 14 (Sonoma) and iOS 17. Hardware-accelerated AV1 decoding arrived alongside the M3 series of Apple silicon processors in late 2023. Devices running macOS 14 or later can decode AV1 natively via WebKit, but macOS 13 remains excluded from this feature.

Alternatives for macOS 13 Users

Users on macOS 13 who need to watch AV1-encoded content must rely on alternative web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge. These browsers bundle their own software decoders (such as the dav1d library) directly within the application, allowing them to decode AV1 video smoothly on CPU cores without relying on macOS 13’s native system capabilities.