What Extract Audio from Video helps you do
Pull the soundtrack out of an MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV file and save it as MP3 or WAV. It is useful for turning a recorded meeting into a listenable file, recovering a voice memo from a video, or preparing audio for a transcript. Decoding and encoding run on your device, so the source never leaves it.
The audio track is decoded and encoded inside your browser. The video and the audio never reach a Haivix server.
How it works
The browser demuxes the file, decodes the audio track and re-encodes it with a local MP3 encoder or writes uncompressed PCM for WAV. MP3 uses a bitrate you choose; WAV keeps the decoded samples without further loss but produces a much larger file. If the video has no audio track, the tool reports that and produces nothing.
How to use Extract Audio from Video
- Load the video and confirm that it contains an audio track.
- Choose MP3 and a bitrate, or WAV for lossless output.
- Start the extraction and wait for the progress indicator.
- Preview the audio to confirm it is the track you expected.
- Download the MP3 or WAV file.
- Trim the video first if you only need part of the recording.
When to use it
- Turn a recorded presentation into an audio file for a commute.
- Recover the sound from a video whose picture is no longer needed.
- Prepare audio for transcription or a podcast edit.
- Extract a music bed or a voice note stored inside a clip.
- Check whether a video's audio track is present and audible.
When not to use it
- Do not use it to copy commercial music you do not have rights to.
- Do not expect MP3 to preserve every detail of a high-quality source.
- Do not use the tool to remove audio; the Mute Video tool is the right choice for that.
Example
A 50-minute webinar recording contains a speaker and slides. Extracting the audio at 128 kbps produces a file small enough to send to a transcription service, while the slides stay in the original video. If the transcript needs the highest fidelity, WAV keeps the decoded samples intact.
What you can do with Extract Audio from Video
- Extract audio from MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV files.
- Encode MP3 at 128, 192 or 320 kbps.
- Write lossless WAV with PCM audio.
- Detect and report a missing audio track.
- Preview the result before downloading.
- Choose the MP3 bitrate before extracting.
- Process everything locally, with no upload.
Example workflow
Trim first when only a section matters. The extractor works on the whole file, so a short trimmed clip produces a short audio file and saves encoding time.
For transcription, start with WAV or 192 kbps MP3 and check the level. A quiet recording will not improve with a higher bitrate; normalise or re-record if the source is unusable.
For a podcast, extract to WAV and edit in an audio tool rather than re-encoding an MP3 twice. Keeping one lossless intermediate avoids stacking codec losses before the final export.
What to know before you start
- The whole audio track is extracted; there is no partial range in this tool.
- MP3 is lossy, and 128 kbps removes audible detail from music.
- WAV files are several times larger than MP3 for the same duration.
- The MP3 encoder downloads once on first use, so the first run needs a network connection.
- A video without an audio track cannot produce output.
Common mistakes
- Choosing 320 kbps for speech that will be transcribed anyway.
- Assuming a silent video has a broken audio track; check the metadata first.
- Deleting the original video before confirming the extracted audio is complete.
- Using WAV for a file that must fit an email limit.
- Extracting audio from a source that was already clipped during recording.
Troubleshooting
If no audio appears, the source may genuinely have no audio track or the track may use an unsupported codec. Check the metadata viewer first.
If the first extraction is slow, the MP3 encoder is still downloading. Later runs reuse the browser cache and start faster.
If the audio sounds clipped, the source level was already too high; re-encoding cannot restore peaks that were lost during recording.
If the extracted file is silent, the video may contain a silent track rather than no track at all. Play the source and check its level before extracting again.
Related standards and documentation
- MPEG-1 Audio Layer III defines the MP3 format and its bitrate options.
- RIFF/WAVE describes the PCM container produced by WAV output.
- 128 kbps is fine for speech and transcription.
- WAV keeps the decoded samples but is much larger.
- There is no way to extract a range without trimming the video first.