How to Extract Audio from a Video (MP3, WAV, FLAC)

Sometimes you have a video and you only need the audio — you recorded a podcast on Zoom and want just the sound, you have a video of a song you'd like as an MP3, you want to listen to a lecture during your commute. Pulling the audio out is a one-step operation if you have the right tool.

The fast way

Extract Audio from Video does exactly this. Drop the video (MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI — most formats work), pick the audio format you want as output, and download.

Five output formats covering the common needs:

Format	When to use
MP3	Universal compatibility. Plays everywhere. 192 kbps default.
WAV	Lossless. Big files. Use if you'll edit the audio further.
FLAC	Lossless compressed. Better than WAV for archival.
AAC	Better quality than MP3 at the same bitrate. Native to Apple devices.
OGG	Open-source, patent-free. Less universal than MP3.
Original	Stream-copy the existing audio without re-encoding. Output is .m4a.

For most people, MP3 is the right choice. For audio you'll edit further (interviews, voiceovers), WAV or FLAC.

Stream-copy vs. re-encode

The "Original" option deserves special attention. Most videos store audio as AAC (in MP4/MOV) or Opus (in WebM). Re-encoding from AAC to MP3 or AAC to AAC means decoding the audio and encoding it again — fast, but it adds a small generation of compression artifacts.

Stream-copy mode skips both the decode and encode and just extracts the existing audio bytes. Result:

• Fast — finishes in seconds even for hour-long videos.
• Lossless — the output is bit-identical to the audio inside your video.
• Original quality — whatever the source codec was, that's what you get.

The catch: the output file is .m4a (an MP4 audio container), not .mp3. Most music players and phones handle .m4a, but some older or niche players don't. Pick stream-copy when speed and quality matter more than file extension; pick MP3 when you need maximum compatibility.

Common workflows

Podcast recording from Zoom

You recorded a Zoom call, ended up with an MP4 with both video and audio. You only want to publish the audio.

1. Open Extract Audio from Video.
2. Drop the MP4.
3. Pick MP3 at 192 kbps (the default).
4. Download.

The MP3 is now ready for upload to your podcast host. If you need to edit before publishing, switch to WAV instead — easier on your editing software.

Music from a music video

You have a music video MP4 and want just the song.

1. Drop the video.
2. Pick MP3 for general listening or FLAC if you want to archive.
3. Download.

For best quality with FLAC, the source video should have lossless audio (rare). Most music videos have lossy audio (AAC), so the FLAC output is bit-perfect to the lossy source — not "better" than the source, just preserved without further loss.

Voice memo saved as MP4

iPhone's "QuickTake" videos and some screen recordings save as MP4 with audio. To get just the audio for a transcription tool:

1. Drop the MP4.
2. Pick WAV for lossless or MP3 for smaller file.
3. Download.

The WAV file is the right format to feed into Audio Transcription if you want to convert the spoken content to text.

What about audio quality?

The output audio quality is bounded by the source video's audio quality. Extracting audio doesn't add quality; it just preserves what was there. A YouTube download with 128 kbps Opus audio extracts to 128 kbps MP3 (or the same Opus stream-copied as .m4a); it doesn't magically become 320 kbps high-fidelity.

If you need higher-quality audio than what's in the video, the answer is to re-record the original source. There's no audio-restoration step that adds detail that wasn't there.

Common questions

Will the audio be in sync with anything I do later? The extracted audio matches the video's audio timeline exactly. If you re-edit and want to put audio back over video, the timing lines up.

Does it preserve metadata (track title, artist, album)? The video container's audio track usually doesn't have ID3-style metadata. Stream-copy preserves whatever was there; MP3 re-encode produces a clean file with no metadata. You can add metadata after with a tag editor.

Are my videos uploaded? No. The extraction runs entirely in your browser via FFmpeg.wasm.

What if the video has no audio? Some screen recordings have video only, no audio track. Extraction will produce an empty (or near-empty) output. The page will show an error in that case — no audio track to extract.