Audio
How to Extract Audio From a Video on Mac (M4A, WAV or MP3)
Open the video in QuickTime Player and choose File > Export As > Audio Only. You get an M4A with no install. For WAV, use afconvert in Terminal. For a lossless copy or an MP3, use ffmpeg. All three run offline.
How do I extract audio from a video with QuickTime?
- Open the MOV or MP4 in QuickTime Player.
- Choose File > Export As > Audio Only.
- Name the file, pick a folder and click Save.
The result is an .m4a file. It is the quickest option, but you get no say in the bitrate, and it only handles files QuickTime itself can open. MKV files will not open. QuickTime also cannot make WAV or MP3.
How do I convert MOV or MP4 to WAV on a Mac?
afconvert is built into macOS and reads video files directly:
afconvert -f WAVE -d LEI16 in.mov out.wavLEI16 means 16-bit little-endian PCM, the standard WAV for editing and CD-quality audio. It is uncompressed, so the file is large. Our 20 second clip became 1.9 MB, and a mono track at 48 kHz costs about 96 KB per second. Stereo doubles that.
Use WAV when you are about to edit the sound in a DAW or send it to a transcription tool that wants PCM. If you only need to listen, M4A is far smaller. Compare the formats in our WAV to MP3 guide.
How do I extract the audio without losing any quality?
Copy the audio stream instead of re-encoding it. With ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i in.mov -vn -c:a copy out.m4aThis lifts the original AAC out of the video untouched, in a second or two. It only works when the audio is AAC, which is typical of iPhone, screen recording and most MP4 files. If the video holds another codec (Opus in a WebM, for example), ffmpeg will refuse to put it in M4A. In that case, re-encode to AAC or keep the original container for audio, such as .mka.
In our test, the copy came out at 386 KB, matching the source audio exactly. Re-encoding the same audio to AAC at 192 kbps made a 479 KB file, so a re-encode is not just lossier but, at that bitrate, larger.
How do I extract audio from a video as MP3?
MP3 needs ffmpeg, because neither QuickTime nor afconvert writes it:
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vn -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 192k out.mp3Pick 128k for speech and 192k to 256k for music. For step-by-step notes by source type, see MP4 to MP3 on Mac and MOV to MP3 on Mac.
Which audio format should I pick?
Measured on the same 20 second clip, on an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 27.0.1 and ffmpeg 8.1.1. The clip was generated, so judge the sizes only, not the sound.
| Method | Format | Size | Quality cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| QuickTime Audio Only | M4A | not measured | Not measured |
| ffmpeg -c:a copy | M4A | 386 KB | None |
| afconvert, 192 kbps | M4A | 479 KB | Re-encoded |
| ffmpeg, 192 kbps | MP3 | 482 KB | Re-encoded |
| afconvert, 16-bit | WAV | 1.9 MB | None beyond the source |
A WAV made from a lossy source is bigger but not better. It cannot restore detail that the video’s AAC already threw away. For a longer comparison, see audio bitrate explained.
When is Smol the wrong tool for this?
For pulling audio out of a video, Smol is the wrong tool. We checked it directly: Smol converts video to MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV, and audio to M4A, MP3, WAV, FLAC or OGG, but it will not turn a video file into an audio file. QuickTime, afconvert and ffmpeg are free and cover it.
Smol pays off on the next step: shrinking or converting a whole folder of audio and video at once, from Finder, with nothing uploaded. It is $29 once, on the buy page. To shrink the video itself, see the best video compressor for Mac.
How we checked this
We ran afconvert and ffmpeg 8.1.1 on a generated 20 s MP4 and MOV on macOS 27.0.1, and checked Smol through its MCP: MP4 to MP3 returned unsupported. Facts last checked . We make Smol, so treat our claims about it with the same care as any vendor’s, and see our editorial policy.
Extracting audio from video: common questions
What is the easiest way to extract audio from a video on a Mac?
QuickTime Player. Open the video, choose File > Export As > Audio Only, and save. It produces an M4A with no installs and no uploads. It will not make WAV or MP3, and it cannot open every video format, so use afconvert or ffmpeg for those.
Can I extract audio from a video without losing quality?
Yes, by copying the audio stream rather than re-encoding it. Run ffmpeg -i in.mov -vn -c:a copy out.m4a. It works when the video’s audio is AAC, and the result matches the original exactly. Any conversion to MP3 or lower-bitrate AAC loses some detail.
How do I convert MOV to M4A on a Mac?
Use QuickTime Player’s File > Export As > Audio Only for the simple route. For a lossless copy of the original audio, run ffmpeg -i in.mov -vn -c:a copy out.m4a. Both give an M4A file and both run entirely on your Mac.
Should I use WAV or MP3 for extracted audio?
Use WAV if you will edit the audio or feed it to software that wants PCM. Use MP3 or M4A to listen or share, because they are many times smaller. A WAV from a video is only as good as the lossy audio inside it.
Why does the extracted audio have no sound?
The video may have no audio track, or the track may use a codec the tool cannot copy. Run ffprobe in.mov to list the streams. If audio is present but in an unusual codec, re-encode to AAC instead of using copy.
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