Extract Audio from Video

What people actually use this for

• Transcripts. Most transcription services charge by the minute and work from audio. Extracting first is faster to upload and often cheaper.
• Reusing a voiceover. A line that worked in one ad can be laid over new footage without re-recording it.
• Studying what works. Listening to a competitor's ad without the visuals makes the script structure obvious in a way watching it does not.
• Rescuing a recording. If the video is unusable but the audio is fine, the audio is still worth keeping.

Which format to pick

For listening or transcribing, MP3 at 192 kbps is more than enough. For anything you will edit and re-export, WAV avoids stacking compression damage — though the file will be roughly ten times larger.

Quality, honestly

Extracting audio re-encodes it, so the output cannot be better than the audio already in the video, and it is very slightly worse. For speech this is inaudible. For music you care about, it is one more generation of loss on top of whatever the video already did.

If the audio matters and you have the original recording, use that instead. This is the right tool when the video is all you have.

Why this one does not upload your file

Most free video tools send your file to a server, process it there and hand back a download link. That works, and it means a stranger now has a copy of your footage, kept for however long their retention policy says — which for unreleased product shots, client work or anything with a face in it is a real cost, not a theoretical one.

Here the encoder is compiled to WebAssembly and runs in this tab. The trade is honest: your laptop is slower than a server farm, so a long clip takes longer. In exchange there is no upload, no queue, no account and no copy of your video anywhere but your own disk.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my file uploaded anywhere?

No. The encoder runs inside your browser through WebAssembly, and the file never leaves your device. You can check this yourself: open your browser's network tab while it runs, or disconnect from the internet once the page has loaded — the tool keeps working.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no sign-up, no email and no watermark on the result.

Which format should I choose?

MP3 if you just want to listen to it or send it somewhere. M4A for slightly better quality at the same file size. WAV if you are going to edit it, since it is uncompressed and will not stack further quality loss.

Will the quality be as good as the original?

Very nearly. The audio is re-encoded, so there is a small generation loss — inaudible for speech, marginally detectable on music if you listen carefully. It can never be better than the audio already inside the video.

It says there is no audio track. What does that mean?

Exactly that: the video file contains no sound. Screen recordings made without system audio, and clips exported silently, are the usual causes. There is nothing to extract.

Can I extract just part of the audio?

Not directly. Trim the video first with the video trimmer, then extract the audio from the trimmed clip.

Which video formats are supported?

MP4, WebM and MOV.

Is it legal to extract audio from someone else's video?

Extracting it for your own private study is generally fine. Republishing it, or using it in an advertisement, is a copyright question and the answer is usually no without permission. This tool does not change who owns the audio.

Why is it slower than a site that uploads my file?

Those services encode on a server farm. This one uses your laptop. For a short clip the difference barely shows, and you skip the upload, the queue, the download, and handing your footage to someone else.