How it works
- Drop your videos.
- Choose the audio format and quality.
- Download the audio files or a ZIP.
Why use it
- MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC or the original format.
- Adjustable bitrate.
- Batch with a ZIP.
- Uses your device hardware, no upload.
Taking the sound out of a video: the five output choices
Original, or a new file
Every video file carries its sound as a separate stream, already compressed. The fastest and best way to get it out is to copy that stream untouched, which is what Original does: no quality is lost and it finishes almost instantly, whatever the length. The other choices decode the sound and encode it again, which takes a little longer and loses a little, in exchange for a format you choose.
| Sound inside the video | Usually found in | Original gives you |
|---|---|---|
| AAC | MP4 and MOV, phones, most downloads | An M4A file |
| Opus or Vorbis | WebM, many web videos | An OGG file |
| MP3 | Some older MP4 and MKV files | An MP3 file |
| FLAC | Some MKV files | A FLAC file, lossless |
| Uncompressed PCM | Some camera and screen recordings | A WAV file |
M4A plays on every phone and computer, in iTunes and Apple Music, Windows Media Player and VLC. Choose a re-encoded format only when you need that exact format.
Which format to choose
- MP3 when the file must play on anything, including car stereos and old players. At constant bitrate, 192 kbps takes about 1.4 MB per minute.
- M4A for AAC audio in a file that phones and music apps open directly. It sounds a little better than MP3 at the same bitrate, and encoded twice as fast in our test.
- AAC writes the same audio as a raw stream, which some devices and editing programs want. Most people should pick M4A instead.
- WAV is uncompressed, about 10 MB per minute of stereo, for editing in an audio program.
The full table of bitrates and sizes is in the MP4 to MP3 guide. Channels can turn stereo into mono, which suits a single voice and keeps the whole bitrate for one channel.
Only part of the video
Type a start and an end, in seconds or as minutes and seconds such as 2:15, to keep only that stretch: one song from a concert recording, a quote from an interview, a ringtone. The times apply to every file in the list. For a cut with a waveform to see exactly where sound starts, extract the whole track and use the audio cutter.
Cleaning up the sound
Sound from phone videos often carries wind, traffic or a humming fan. After extracting it, the noise remover can take out steady background noise from speech, and the audio converter changes the format, bitrate or channels of files you already have.
If something goes wrong
- It says the file has no audio track. The video was recorded or exported without sound, as many screen recordings are.
- The original audio cannot be stored in that container. The sound uses a codec without a matching audio file type. Choose MP3, M4A or WAV.
- It says the browser cannot decode the audio. Some videos use sound formats browsers cannot read, such as the AC-3 surround sound of some films. Another browser may read it; otherwise the video needs converting in a desktop program first.
Popular ways to use this tool
Questions and answers
How do I convert MP4 to MP3?
Drop the MP4, choose MP3 and click Extract audio.
Is quality lost?
MP3 is lossy. At 192 kbps or higher it is very close for most listening. Choose WAV for an uncompressed copy.
Does it work offline?
Yes, after the page has loaded once.
Related guides
Removing background noise from audio: what works
We mixed five kinds of noise into real recordings of people speaking and cleaned them with a small neural network that runs in the browser. Steady noise almost disappeared. Sudden sounds and music were another story.