The QuickTime file format (QTFF, QT, or MOV) was created by Apple for use by its media framework of the same name. The extension for these files, .mov, comes from the fact that the format was initially used for movies and was usually called the "QuickTime movie" format. While QTFF served as the basis for the MPEG-4 file format, there are differences and the two are not quite interchangeable.

QuickTime files support any sort of time-based data, including audio and video media, text tracks, and so forth. QuickTime files are primarily supported by macOS, but for a number of years, QuickTime for Windows was available to access them on Windows. However, QuickTime for Windows is no longer supported by Apple as of early 2016, and should not be used, as there are known security concerns. However, Windows Media Player now has integrated support for QuickTime version 2.0 and earlier files; support for later versions of QuickTime requires third-party additions.

On Mac OS, the QuickTime framework not only supported QuickTime format movie files and codecs, but supported a vast array of popular and specialty audio and video codecs, as well as still image formats. Through QuickTime, Mac applications (including web browsers, through the QuickTime plugin or direct QuickTime integration) were able to read and write audio formats including AAC, AIFF, MP3, PCM, and Qualcomm PureVoice; and video formats including AVI, DV, Pixlet, ProRes, FLAC, Cinepak, 3GP, H.261 through H.265, MJPEG, MPEG-1 and MPEG-4 Part 2, Sorenson, and many more.

In addition, a number of third-party components are available for QuickTime, some of which add support for additional codecs.

Because QuickTime support is, for all intents and purposes, primarily available on Apple devices, it is no longer widely used on the internet. Apple itself generally now uses MP4 for video. In addition, the QuickTime framework has been deprecated on the Mac for some time, and is no longer available at all starting in macOS 10.15 Catalina.

The video/quicktime MIME type is the fundamental type for the QuickTime media container. It's worth noting that QuickTime (the media framework on Mac operating systems) supports a wide variety of containers and codecs, so it actually supports many other MIME types.

You can add the codecs parameter to the MIME type string to indicate which codecs are used for the audio and/or video tracks, and to optionally provide details about the profile, level, and/or other codec configuration specifics.