How to Extract Audio from Any Video — Free Browser Tool

You have a video with audio you need. Maybe it is a lecture recording and you want just the audio for your commute. Maybe someone sent you a voice memo as a video file. Maybe you downloaded a TikTok or Instagram clip and you want to use the sound in a project. Whatever the reason, you need the audio out of the video and into a file you can actually use.

Most online converters make you upload your video to their server, wait for it to process, and then download a compressed result. Some add watermarks or limit file sizes. We built a Video to Audio Converter that does the entire job in your browser. Your video never gets uploaded anywhere.

What This Tool Does

Drop any video file into the tool and it extracts the audio track, giving you a downloadable WAV file. Here is what makes it different:

• 100% client-side. Your video never leaves your device. The browser's Web Audio API handles all the decoding locally.
• Lossless WAV output. You get uncompressed audio at the original sample rate. No quality loss from re-encoding.
• Trim before extracting. Set start and end times to grab just the portion you need instead of the whole file.
• Works with every major format. MP4, MOV, WebM, AVI, MKV, 3GP, and more. If your browser can play it, this tool can extract audio from it.
• No accounts, no watermarks, no limits.

Why You Might Need This

Here are some common situations where extracting audio from video is useful:

• Lectures and presentations. Record a class or meeting as video, then pull out the audio to listen on the go. WAV files work in every podcast app and audio player.
• Social media audio. Grab the audio from a TikTok, Instagram Reel, or YouTube video for use in your own content (with proper permissions).
• Voice memos. Some phones save voice recordings as video files. Extract the audio to get a proper audio file.
• Music and sound effects. Pull audio from video clips for use in podcasts, playlists, or audio editing projects.
• Transcription prep. Many transcription tools work better with audio-only files. Extract the audio first, then run it through your transcription service.
• Archiving. Save audio tracks separately from video for long-term storage or backup.

How to Extract Audio from a Video

The process takes about 30 seconds:

1. Drop Your Video

Drag and drop a video file onto the tool, or click to browse. The tool reads the file locally and shows you the file name, duration, and estimated output size.

2. Preview the Audio

An audio player appears so you can listen to the audio track before extracting. This lets you confirm you have the right file and hear what the output will sound like.

3. Trim (Optional)

If you only need part of the audio, set the Start and End times in seconds. The duration display updates in real time. For example, if you have a 10-minute lecture but only need the first 3 minutes, set Start to 0 and End to 180.

4. Extract and Download

Click "Extract & Download Audio" and the tool decodes the audio, encodes it as WAV, and triggers a download. The filename follows the pattern originalname-audio-SmarterSources.wav.

Supported Video Formats

The tool accepts any video format your browser can decode:

• MP4 (H.264 + AAC) — the universal format. Works in all browsers. This covers most videos from iPhones, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter/X.
• WebM (VP8/VP9 + Opus/Vorbis) — common on Reddit and web platforms. Works in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
• MOV — iPhone's native format, including HEVC/H.265. Works in Safari and most modern browsers.
• AVI, M4V, MKV, OGV, 3GP, FLV — supported to varying degrees depending on your browser.

If your browser cannot decode a particular codec, the tool will let you know. In that case, try a different browser (Chrome tends to support the widest range) or convert the video to MP4 first.

Why WAV Instead of MP3?

The tool outputs WAV (PCM 16-bit) for a good reason: it is lossless. When you extract audio from a video, the audio is already compressed inside the video file (usually as AAC or Opus). If the tool re-compressed it to MP3, you would lose quality twice — once in the original encoding and again in the MP3 conversion. WAV preserves everything the browser decoded.

The tradeoff is file size. A 3-minute audio track might be 30 MB as WAV versus 3 MB as MP3. If you need a smaller file, you can convert the WAV to MP3 afterward using any audio converter. But starting with lossless WAV gives you the highest quality foundation.

Think of WAV as the master copy. You can always compress it later, but you cannot uncompress an MP3 back to full quality.

Tips for Best Results

• Use trim for long videos. A 60-minute video at CD quality produces a WAV file over 600 MB. Trim to just the section you need to keep file sizes manageable.
• Check the preview first. The audio player lets you scrub through the track before extracting. Use it to find the exact timestamps you want.
• iPhone videos work great. MOV files from iPhones contain high-quality AAC audio. The tool handles these natively in Safari and Chrome.
• Chrome for maximum format support. If a video does not work in your current browser, try Chrome. It supports the widest range of video and audio codecs.

How It Works Under the Hood

For the technically curious:

1. When you drop a video file, the tool reads it as an ArrayBuffer using the FileReader API.
2. The ArrayBuffer is passed to the browser's Web Audio API (AudioContext.decodeAudioData), which decodes the audio track into raw PCM samples.
3. If you set trim times, the tool slices the decoded audio buffer to include only the selected range.
4. The PCM samples are encoded into a WAV file by writing the RIFF/WAV header followed by the raw audio data.
5. The resulting Blob becomes a downloadable file.

No server is involved at any step. The Web Audio API is a standard browser feature — the same technology that powers web-based music apps and games. It handles the codec decoding natively, which is why the tool supports whatever your browser supports.

Get Started

Open the Video to Audio Converter, drop a video, optionally set your trim points, and download the audio. If you also need to convert a video to GIF, check out the Video to GIF Converter. Both tools run entirely in your browser with no uploads required.