How to extract the audio from a video

Get the soundtrack out as a file you can edit, transcribe or keep — without uploading the video anywhere.

Separating sound from picture is a small job with a lot of uses: turning a recorded talk into something you can listen to on a walk, pulling an interview out of a video call recording for transcription, or keeping the audio from a performance without carrying the video around.

Step-by-step

1. Open the tool. Go to the audio extractor.
2. Drop in your video. MP4, WebM, MOV, and audio formats all work.
3. Trim if you only need a section — set a start and end in seconds.
4. Choose channels and sample rate. These decide the file size, sometimes dramatically.
5. Extract. The estimated size is shown before you commit.

Why the output is WAV, and how to keep it small

Browsers can decode almost any audio they can play, but they have no built-in encoder for compressed formats. Producing an MP3 would mean shipping a large encoder to your device; instead the tool writes WAV, which browsers create natively and which every editor and transcription service accepts.

The cost is size — WAV is uncompressed, roughly 10 MB per minute in stereo at CD quality. Two settings cut that sharply when fidelity isn't the point:

• Mono halves it, and speech recordings rarely need stereo.
• 16 kHz reduces it much further and is exactly what speech-recognition software wants. Mono at 16 kHz is about a tenth the size of stereo CD quality.

If you need MP3 for distribution, convert the WAV afterwards in an audio editor.

Frequently asked questions

Is my video uploaded?

No. Decoding and encoding both happen in your browser, so nothing is sent anywhere.

My file won't decode.

Extraction depends on codecs your browser supports. MP4/AAC, WebM/Opus, MOV, MP3, M4A and WAV all work in current browsers; unusual containers may not, and you get a clear message rather than a silent failure.

Is there a length limit?

No fixed one, but the audio is decoded into memory, so a feature-length film may strain an older device. Trimming to the section you need keeps it manageable.