How to extract audio from a video as MP3 or WAV, or remove the sound completely

Sound and picture travel together in a video file, but they are stored separately, and that separation is what makes two opposite jobs possible. Sometimes you want only the sound: a lecture to listen to on a walk, a podcast that was recorded on camera, a song from your own concert footage. Other times you want only the picture: a clip with background music that could cause a copyright claim, a screen recording that captured a private conversation, or a silent loop for a website banner.

This guide explains how audio lives inside a video, which format to choose when you extract it, what the numbers mean, and what to expect when you strip sound out. You can do both jobs in your browser with the Extract Audio from Video tool and the Remove Audio from Video tool, without uploading a single byte.

How audio is stored inside a video

An MP4 or MOV file is a container. Inside it sit separate tracks, typically one video stream and one audio stream, plus timing information that keeps them in step. The audio stream is usually compressed with AAC. Other containers, such as WebM, often hold Opus or Vorbis instead.

Because the tracks are independent, software can treat them separately. Desktop tools can copy the audio stream straight out of the container with no re-encoding, which is fast and lossless, but it leaves you with an AAC or Opus file that not every player or editor accepts. The browser-based extractor takes a different approach: it decodes the sound to raw samples and then encodes it as an MP3 or WAV file, formats that work nearly everywhere.

MP3 or WAV: which should you extract?

The answer depends on what happens next. If the audio is going into an editor for noise reduction, level changes or mixing, use WAV. It stores every decoded sample exactly, so later edits start from the cleanest possible material. If you only want to listen, share or upload it, use MP3, which is roughly ten times smaller.

Because the source was already compressed inside the video, extracting to MP3 means compressing twice. At a high bitrate the second pass is hard to hear, but it is worth avoiding for anything you plan to process repeatedly.

The MP3 sizes come straight from bitrate: kilobits per second multiplied by 60 and divided by 8. WAV is bigger because it stores 48,000 samples per second, two channels, two bytes each. The tool decodes the audio at your browser's own sample rate, which was 48 kHz in our Chrome on Windows and is 44.1 kHz on some devices, so the WAV is about 10 to 11.5 MB per minute depending on where you run it.

How to extract audio from a video

1. Open Extract Audio from Video and load your file. Videos up to about 600 MB are supported.
2. Choose MP3 with a bitrate, or WAV for lossless audio. For speech, 128 or 192 kbps is plenty.
3. Press Extract Audio. The first phase reads the sound track, and the second encodes it. The progress bar shows both.
4. Play the result in the built-in player to confirm you have the right track and the levels are sensible.
5. Download the file. It is named after your video with the new extension.

If you only want part of the audio, trim the video first with the Video Trimmer. It is quicker than extracting an hour of sound and cutting it afterwards.

A word on loudness

Extracted audio keeps whatever level the video had, and video is often mixed quietly or unevenly. Streaming services and podcast guides commonly refer to integrated loudness targets somewhere around −14 to −16 LUFS. You do not need to hit an exact number for casual use, but if a recording is too quiet or too loud, adjust it in an audio editor after extracting a WAV, where changes will not stack another layer of compression on top.

Three practical recipes

• Lecture to listening copy. Trim the intro and outro, extract MP3 at 128 kbps, and you get roughly 58 MB for an hour of speech, small enough for any phone.
• Interview cleanup. Extract WAV, remove hiss and level the voices in an audio editor, then export the final MP3 once. Compressing only at the end avoids stacking losses.
• Keepsake from a family video. Extract at 192 kbps to save a birthday song or a child's first words as a standalone file that plays anywhere.

Extracted files carry no title, artist or cover art, because the video had none to give. Add tags afterwards in any tag editor if the file is headed for a music or podcast library.

When extraction fails

• “No sound track” errors. Some videos, especially screen recordings and downloaded clips, simply have no audio.
• Unsupported codec. A file with a codec your browser cannot decode will not open. Convert it first with the Video Converter.
• Memory limits. The whole sound track is decoded in memory. A very long file on an older phone may struggle, so close other tabs or use a desktop browser.
• Wrong track. A few files hold several audio tracks, such as multiple languages. Browsers normally decode the default one.

Why people remove audio from a video

Removing sound is the mirror-image job, and the reasons are more varied than they first appear:

• Music rights. Background music can trigger automated copyright detection on many platforms. A silent copy removes the audio issue, though you still need the right to use the picture.
• Privacy. A phone or screen recording may capture conversations, notifications and voices you did not intend to share.
• Autoplay backgrounds. Browsers block sound from autoplaying, so a silent video is the cleanest choice for a hero loop or banner.
• Voiceover or new music. Start from a clean picture and add your own sound in an editor.
• Consistency. A set of clips for a presentation looks tidier when none of them suddenly produces noise.

Does removing audio make the file smaller?

Only slightly. Audio bitrate is small compared with video. A typical 1080p video at 8 Mbps carries about 128 kbps of audio, roughly 1.6% of the total. On a 100 MB file that is around 1.6 MB. If your goal is a smaller file, the savings come from lowering resolution or bitrate, which the video compression guide explains in detail.

The exception is a video with unusually rich audio, such as uncompressed or multichannel sound, where the audio share can be much larger.

How to remove audio from a video

1. Open Remove Audio from Video and load your clip.
2. Play it briefly to confirm it is the right file.
3. Press Remove Audio. The picture is played and recorded without any sound track. A progress bar shows how far along it is.
4. Play the silent result. The video plays normally, and the player shows no sound.
5. Download the file. Its name ends in -no-audio.

Export happens in real time, so a one-minute clip takes about a minute. Keep the tab open and visible until it finishes.

Muting versus removing

Setting the volume to zero in a player or editor is not the same as deleting the track. A muted file still contains the audio, and anyone with the right software can restore it. That matters when the sound was private. A file produced by the remover contains no audio track, so there is nothing to recover. The opposite risk exists too: a few apps and upload forms expect an audio track to be present and may warn about a silent file, and if that happens, add an inaudible track in an editor.

Quality and limits to expect

Both tools re-encode, and both process locally. For the remover, the picture is recorded again at a bitrate matched to the original, so quality stays close but not identical. If bit-perfect output is essential, a desktop tool that copies the video stream without re-encoding is the better route. For everyday sharing, the difference is difficult to notice. Whichever direction you work in, keep the original video until you have played the new file all the way through and confirmed it is exactly what you wanted.

Finally, remember rights. Extracting the soundtrack from a film or a music video for reuse is still copying that work. Use audio you recorded, licensed or were given permission to use. Because everything runs on your device, you can also handle sensitive interviews or internal meetings without exposing them to a third-party server.

If you plan to reshape or shorten the video afterwards, the guide to trimming and cropping explains the best order of edits.