Extract audio from video

1. 1

   Add a video

   Drop an MP4, MOV, WebM or any video your browser can play. It isn't uploaded.

2. 2

   Pick the format

   Original audio keeps the track exactly as it is in the video. WAV decodes it into uncompressed audio.

3. 3

   Extract and download

   Play the result to check it, then download it.

Most MP4 and MOV files carry AAC audio. Original audio copies that AAC track into an M4A file without decoding it, so it's as good as the video's sound, small, and done in seconds. WebM usually carries Opus, which is saved as Ogg.

WAV decodes the track into uncompressed 16-bit audio. The file is about 11 MB a minute at 48 kHz stereo, but every editor, DAW and transcription tool opens it, and cutting it never adds compression.

• Background music or a voiceover to reuse in another edit: original audio.
• Cleaning up dialogue, mixing, or loading into a DAW: WAV.
• A file for a tool that only takes WAV: WAV.

The same jobs on the command line. -vn drops the video.

• Copy the track without re-encoding: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -c:a copy audio.m4a
• Decode to 16-bit WAV: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn audio.wav
• Only seconds 2 to 5: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -ss 2 -to 5 part.wav

No. Your browser reads the video and writes the audio file itself. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Original audio doesn't: the track is copied, not re-encoded. WAV is decoded from that track, so it sounds the same, just larger.

The audio in most MP4 and MOV files is AAC, and M4A is AAC's own file. Turning it into MP3 would mean re-encoding and losing a little quality. M4A plays in almost every app and on every phone.

MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV with audio your browser can decode, which covers AAC, Opus and MP3. If a file fails, try Chrome, which decodes the most formats.

Some screen recordings and exported clips have no audio track at all. The tool says so instead of making a silent file.