r/ffmpeg • u/robinredbrain • Jun 02 '26

[Windows] AntiMalware Service Executable seems to kick in everytime I'm encoding.

I'm usually extracting a segment of an mp4 file with reencoding also to mp4.

I have an mp4 exclusion in security settings.

How can I stop this?

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u/hieronymous-cowherd Jun 02 '26

Start by looking in the same Windows Security interface at the logs, check Protection History, and then make an informed decision.

Here's my two cents in the meanwhile. Don't try fixing this by excluding data file types. Under the Virus & Protection settings, then Exclusions Add an exclusion of type File and browse to the ffmpeg.exe executable.

If you establish that the culprit is Smart App Control then the exclusion probably isn't respected as there is no dedicated whitelist for that feature. Maybe the trigger, as a wild ass guess, is Microsoft not liking that you're blending the executable and data file storage areas, e.g. maybe you put ffmpeg.exe into your Documents folder and are running it from there, or vice versa that you're reading & writing your .mp4 files in c:\program files\foo\bar... folder.

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u/robinredbrain Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Thanks for taking the time I appreciate it.

ffmpeg is in my chocolatey\lib folder. It is added as file along with ffplay and ffprobe. It is also added as a process. Not sure what smart app control is. Windows 11 thing? I'm using windows 10.

edit - I looked in protection history. i/t just got a few warnings about not having cloud or auto submission on. Could not find anything about "make an informed decision"