2026 Tested Ways to Rip Blu-ray to ISO on Mac & Windows: 1:1 Backup & Decryption

I often see the same problem in archiving forums: users try to clone a Blu-ray with standard tools such as macOS Disk Utility, but the final ISO will not play correctly. An ISO image is different from an MKV or MP4 file. It is meant to preserve the full disc structure, including BD-J menus, playlists, chapters, and original folders. If the disc protection is not handled during the backup process, the copied ISO may keep the structure but still fail to open or play as expected.

To create a usable 1:1 Blu-ray ISO backup for personal use, the software needs to read the disc correctly and handle the protection during copying. In this guide, I will show the workflow with DVDFab Blu-ray Copy to rip Blu-ray to ISO, then compare it with the manual MakeMKV alternative. I will also explain how to mount and play the finished ISO with the original menu structure intact.

How to Rip Blu-ray to ISO with DVDFab Blu-ray Copy

DVDFab Blu-ray Copy provides a streamlined way to rip Blu-ray to ISO on Windows and macOS. Beyond creating ISO images or folder for compatible playback and digital backups, it can also physically clone discs—either as a 1:1 duplicate or as a compressed copy written to blank media.

The most important reason to use DVDFab Blu-ray Copy is that it handles the disc's copy protection layers (AACS, BD+, BD-J, region codes) in the same pass as it builds the ISO, so you get a mountable image with menus intact — something free image-building tools like ImgBurn cannot do on their own.

Step 1: Launch DVDFab Blu-ray Copy and Choose a Copy Mode

To rip a Blu-ray to an ISO, download and run DVDFab Blu-ray Copy. 

Choose the Copy module, then use the mode switcher to pick one of the following: Full Disc, Main Movie, Merge, Customize and Clone/Burn. In this section, I'll use Main Movie mode to display the whole Blu-ray to ISO conversion process.

Step 2: Load Your Blu-ray Disc

Insert your Blu-ray disc into the optical drive, and DVDFab will detect and load it automatically. If your source is a Blu-ray ISO file or a BDMV folder stored on your hard drive, click Add Source or drag and drop it directly into the main interface. After the upload, the program takes a few seconds to parse the file, and then your resource will appear on the panel.

Step 3: Customize the Blu-ray ISO File

To choose the titles and chapters you want to keep, click Choose Other Titles and Chapter drop-down box. In Main Movie mode, the longest title is automatically selected. 

To select the audio tracks and subtitles, open Audio Track and Subtitle drop-down boxes. If you want to import external subtitle files, open the Subtitle menu, click Add External Subtitles, and upload your .SRT files as the instructions.

To fine-tune the Blu-ray to ISO conversion, open Advanced Settings, then customize the volume label, choose the output disc type and resolution (to control the final file size), and decide whether to remove HD audio, etc. Then, click OK to confirm.

Step 4: Select ISO as Output and Start Ripping

Click the ISO icon to set the output directory and file name. When everything is ready, click Start to copy Blu-ray disc to image files.

Free Way to Create Blu-ray ISO with MakeMKV and ImgBurn

For users on a strict budget or those who only need to archive discs occasionally, a professional license may not be necessary. In technical communities like Reddit's r/DataHoarder, the standard advice for a zero-cost workaround is combining two specific utilities.

You need to combine MakeMKV and ImgBurn. This method relies on a split workflow. MakeMKV is used solely to bypass the copy protection, while ImgBurn is required to package the resulting files into an image. Since MakeMKV cannot export a Blu-ray to ISO file natively, ImgBurn acts as the necessary bridge to create a standard, mountable disc image from the raw folders.

One honest caveat on ImgBurn: its last release (2.5.8.0) dates to 2013 and it is Windows-only, so it cannot handle newer disc encryption on its own and is best treated as a legacy image-builder for the already-decrypted folder MakeMKV hands it. That's fine for this workflow, but it's not a modern peer of a maintained tool.

At-a-glance: paid vs free method

*Test rig: Windows 11, Buffalo BRUHD-PU3 external drive, GPU acceleration on, ~3-hour Blu-ray title.

Step 1: Decrypt Disc to BDMV Folder with MakeMKV

The objective here is to rip the raw file structure, not to convert video streams.

1. Insert the disc and launch MakeMKV. Wait for the drive to authenticate.
2. Ignore the large "Save to MKV" button. Instead, click the "Backup" icon in the toolbar.
3. In the backup window, check the box for "Decrypt video files." If you skip this, the resulting data will remain encrypted and unplayable.
4. Set an output directory and click OK. This process copies the raw BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders to your drive.

Step 2: Build the ISO Image with ImgBurn

Now that you have the raw folders, you need to package them into an ISO that a player can recognize.

1. Open ImgBurn and select "Create image file from files/folders."
2. Click the "Folder" icon to browse and source the backup folder you created in Step 1.
3. Click the Options tab on the right panel. Change the File System to UDF 2.50. 
       Note: Standard ISO9660 or UDF 1.02 will not work for Blu-ray.
4. Select a destination for your ISO file and click the large Build button.

Play and Mount Your Blu-ray ISO with Menus Intact

Ripping is only half the job. Once you have a 25–50 GB ISO sitting on your drive (BD25 discs land closer to 25 GB, BD50 discs closer to 50 GB — free up space accordingly), the next question is how to actually watch it with the menus you went to the trouble of preserving.

Mount the ISO on Windows 11

Windows 10 and 11 have a built-in virtual drive: right-click the ISO and choose Mount. The image shows up as a new drive letter, and any Blu-ray-aware player pointed at that drive will treat it like the original disc. To eject, right-click the mounted drive and choose Eject. On macOS, double-clicking the ISO mounts it in Finder the same way.

Which players actually show the menus?

This is where readers usually get burned. VLC will play the video streams inside the ISO, but it does not render full BD-J menus — you'll see the movie, not the animated menu the disc shipped with. For the full menu experience, use a menu-capable player such as CyberLink PowerDVD or Leawo Blu-ray Player. If the ISO came from a commercial disc, the player still has to be able to handle its decryption at playback time — a plain player pointed at a still-encrypted image will fail.

A note on media servers (Plex, Jellyfin, etc.)

Popular home-media servers do not play Blu-ray ISOs directly with menus. Plex, in particular, does not support ISO playback natively; the common workaround is to convert the ISO to MKV or MP4 for streaming and keep the ISO purely as an archive master. If streaming to a TV or phone is your real goal, ripping to MKV with DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper is a better fit than fighting the ISO through a server.

Best for keeping the ISO route: you want the disc experience — menus, extras, chapter structure — on a PC or Mac with a menu-capable player, and you're happy to convert a copy to MKV separately for the living-room server.