How to Extract the Audio From a Video as MP3 or M4A

Sometimes the picture doesn't matter. A recorded lecture, a podcast you filmed, a voice note sent as video, a performance by your band: you want to listen on the go, edit the sound, or share it without a huge video file. Extracting the audio takes seconds.

Extract the audio

1. Open Video to MP3 and add your video file.
2. Choose the format: MP3, M4A, WAV or OGG.
3. Choose the quality if the format has one.
4. Save the audio file.

This works with video files on your device. It can't download from YouTube or other websites; for videos you don't own, check that you're allowed to use the sound.

Which format should you choose?

• M4A often keeps the original audio from the video with no quality loss at all, because phone and camera videos usually store their sound as AAC, which M4A can hold as is. It's the best choice when your player supports it, and most phones and computers do.
• MP3 plays absolutely everywhere: old car stereos, every app, every website. It's re-encoded, so choose a good bitrate.
• WAV is uncompressed, large and lossless. Choose it if you'll edit the audio in a music or audio program.
• OGG is an open format, compact and good quality, but supported in fewer places.

Which MP3 quality?

• 192 kbps sounds great for music and keeps files reasonable.
• 128 kbps is fine for speech: lectures, interviews, podcasts.

Higher bitrates make bigger files with little audible difference for most listeners. If the original audio in the video was low quality, a high MP3 bitrate won't improve it.

Keep only the part you need

Long recordings often include silence or chatter at the start and end. Cut them with the Audio Trimmer. Fast mode is lossless. For a talk with several sections, the Audio Cutter can save each section as its own file.

Convert later if needed

If you chose M4A and later need MP3 for a device that doesn't support it, the Audio Converter converts between common formats. Convert from the best version you have, not from an already compressed copy.

Useful ideas

• Lectures and meetings: listen while commuting, at a faster speed.
• Music practice: extract a performance to study it or send it to bandmates.
• Transcription: an audio file is much smaller to work with than a video.
• Ringtones and alerts: extract a sound, trim it, and use it as a ringtone.
• Podcasts: record on video, publish the audio.

Common questions

Why is my MP3 so much smaller than the video? Video takes up nearly all of a video file's size. Audio alone is tiny in comparison: about 1–1.5 MB per minute at 128–192 kbps.

Can I extract audio from several videos at once? Process them one after another. Each takes only a moment because nothing needs uploading.

The video has no sound in the result. Why? The video may have no audio track, or a muted one. Check the file in the Video Info tool, which shows whether an audio stream exists.

Is the extracted audio in stereo? It keeps the channels of the original. Many phones record in stereo.

Private and local

Your video is processed in your browser and never uploaded. That makes it fast, even for large files, and private for personal recordings.