How to Extract Audio from a Video on Any Device

You recorded a lecture, an interview or a song on your phone, and now you only need the sound. Maybe you want to send it to a transcription service, edit it in an audio app, or just listen without the screen on. Extracting the audio track is quick, and you don’t need to install anything.

The quick way: in your browser

The fastest option on any device is a converter that runs in the browser itself. With the Video to Audio tool, the video never leaves your phone or computer, so it works for private recordings and has no upload wait.

1. Open Video to Audio and tap the drop area to choose your video.
2. Pick Mono for speech or Keep original for music.
3. Choose a sample rate. 44.1 kHz is CD quality; 16 kHz is ideal for transcription.
4. Press play on the preview, then download the WAV file.

If your file is an MP4 or an M4A voice memo, the MP4 to WAV page does the same job with settings tuned for those formats.

Which settings should you choose?

WAV is uncompressed, so the settings you choose decide how big the file gets. Here is roughly how much space one minute of audio takes:

Many transcription services, including most speech recognition APIs, work at 16 kHz internally. Sending them 16 kHz mono gives the same accuracy with a file about five times smaller.

Keep only the part you need

Long recordings often start with setup noise or end with chatter. After extracting, open the WAV in Trim Audio, drag across the waveform to select the part you want, and add a short fade in and out so the clip doesn’t start with a click.

If the speaker was far from the microphone, Change Audio Volume can raise the level. Its Normalize button makes the clip as loud as possible without distortion.

Other ways to do it

• On a Mac: QuickTime Player has File → Export As → Audio Only, which saves an M4A file.
• On Windows: the free VLC player can convert video to audio through Media → Convert / Save.
• On the command line: if you have FFmpeg installed, ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn audio.wav extracts the track.

These are good options if you already have the software. The browser method wins when you’re on a phone, on a work computer where you can’t install apps, or handling a file you don’t want to upload anywhere.

Troubleshooting

• “Your browser couldn’t read the audio”: the video may use a codec your browser can’t decode. Chrome and Edge support the most formats. MKV and AVI files often fail; try converting them to MP4 first.
• The file has no sound: some screen recordings and GIF-style clips don’t contain an audio track at all.
• Very long videos: browsers can only hold so much in memory. For files over about 1.5 GB, trim the video first or use desktop software.