Free Video to MP3 Converter

A video file such as MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV is a container. Inside it the picture and the sound are kept as separate tracks, each compressed on its own, and a video can carry more than one audio track.

Extracting audio means reading one of those sound tracks and saving it as a file of its own, without the picture. The tool takes the video's first audio track, which is the one a player uses by default.

Everything happens in your browser. The video is read piece by piece from your disk and never uploaded, which is why even a large file does not have to be loaded into memory all at once.

MP3 is the practical choice for listening, sharing and uploading. It is small: about 1 MB a minute at 128 kbps and 2.4 MB at 320 kbps. The tool offers 128, 192 and 320 kbps, with 192 as the default.

WAV is uncompressed 16-bit audio, about 10.6 MB a minute for stereo. Choose it when the audio will be edited or mixed further, because opening and saving a WAV never adds another round of compression.

If you only want to listen to the sound of a video or send it to a friend, an MP3 at 192 kbps is enough. If you plan to keep working on it, take the WAV.

The sound in a video is already compressed, usually as AAC, when the video is made. Whatever detail was dropped then is gone from the file, and extracting can never bring it back.

Saving to MP3 encodes the sound once more, so a very small amount of extra detail is lost. At 192 kbps or 320 kbps this is hard to hear. Saving to WAV loses nothing more, but it does not improve the original either.

An MP3 bitrate higher than the video's own audio only makes the file larger. If the sound in the video is a modest 128 kbps AAC, a 320 kbps MP3 will not sound better than a 192 kbps one.