Extract the audio from a video
Save the sound as M4A or WAV, at full quality, without uploading anything.
Processed on your device. Your video is never uploaded. How we know
Drop a video to pull the audio out
Drop a video here, paste it with Ctrl+V, or choose one from your device.
ClipHeron runs in your browser. We don’t receive your videos, their names or anything in them. Ads on this page load separately and are not given your files. What happens to your video
How to get the audio out of a video file
Most “video to MP3” sites upload your video and re-encode the sound, which costs you time, privacy and a little quality. ClipHeron does the obvious thing instead: if the audio in your video is already AAC (which it is for nearly every phone, camera and screen recording), it copies the AAC frames into an M4A file without touching them. If it isn’t, it decodes and encodes to AAC, or writes an uncompressed WAV for editing.
- 1
Add the video
Drop or choose a video. The file card shows the audio track: codec, channels, sample rate and bitrate. If there are several tracks, the default one is used.
- 2
Pick an output
The recommended option is preselected: M4A (copy) for AAC sources, M4A (AAC 192 kbps) for everything else. Choose WAV if you are going to edit the audio. Tick “Only a part of it” to pick a range.
- 3
Extract and listen
Press Extract. Play the result in the built-in player, then download it. The button states the file size.
What this tool does
- M4A (copy) when the source audio is AAC: a lossless repackage in seconds, bit-identical to the original track
- M4A (AAC 192 kbps) for Opus, MP3, Vorbis, PCM, FLAC and ALAC sources
- WAV at 16-bit, or 24-bit for lossless sources, at the source sample rate
- File card shows the audio codec, channels, sample rate and bitrate so the recommendation makes sense
- Optional range on the shared timeline: sample-accurate for WAV, AAC-frame-accurate for M4A copy
- Native audio player to check the result before downloading
- Audio-only files (M4A, WAV) accepted too, for repackaging or converting to WAV
- No MP3 output yet, and the FAQ says why
The audio from a 3-minute phone clip, three ways
A 3 minute 12 second phone video with stereo AAC audio at 128 kbps and 48 kHz. Durations are the same in every case; only the encoding changes:
| Output | How it is made | Size | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| M4A (copy) | AAC frames remuxed into an M4A container, no decode | 128 kbps × 192 s ÷ 8 ≈ 3.1 MB | Identical to the original track |
| WAV 16-bit | Decoded to PCM, 2 channels × 48,000 samples × 2 bytes per second | 192 s × 192,000 B/s ≈ 36.9 MB | Exactly what the decoder produced; nothing added |
| WAV 24-bit | As above with 3 bytes per sample | ≈ 55.3 MB | Only useful for FLAC, ALAC or PCM sources; AAC has no extra precision to keep |
A WebM screen recording with Opus audio can’t be copied into an M4A, so it is decoded and encoded to AAC at 192 kbps: about 4.6 MB for the same length, with the AAC encoder working in the browser.
AAC copy versus re-encoding
Audio in a video file is already compressed, almost always with AAC. Decoding it and encoding it again to AAC (or to MP3) can only lose quality, never gain any. So when the source is AAC-LC or HE-AAC, ClipHeron copies the compressed frames into an M4A, which is simply an MP4 container with the audio track alone. The file opens in Apple Music, Windows Media Player, VLC, Chrome and every phone. It takes seconds even for a two-hour recording, because nothing is decoded.
When the source is something else (Opus in a WebM, PCM in a MOV, MP3, FLAC or ALAC in an MKV), there is no container that every player accepts for a copy, so the audio is decoded and encoded to AAC at 192 kbps, which is transparent for speech and nearly so for music. Audio priming (the first 1,024 samples of silence an AAC encoder adds) is carried in an edit list so the result lines up with the video to the millisecond.
M4A or WAV?
M4A for listening, sharing and attaching: small, universal, and lossless relative to the source when copied. WAV for editing: uncompressed PCM that every audio editor, DAW and video editor opens without a decoder, at the cost of about 10 MB per minute at 16-bit stereo 48 kHz. Pick 24-bit only when the source is FLAC, ALAC or PCM; an AAC source has no extra precision to preserve, and the 24-bit file is just 50% larger.
WAV files cannot exceed 2 GB, so the option is disabled above that predicted size (about 3.5 hours at 16-bit stereo 48 kHz); use M4A for very long recordings. Multichannel sources such as 5.1 are downmixed to stereo, with a notice.
Why there is no MP3 output yet
Every usable MP3 encoder (LAME, Shine, their JavaScript ports) is licensed under the LGPL, which ClipHeron’s open-source policy does not allow in a bundled engine without a documented compliance approach. M4A plays everywhere MP3 plays, including car stereos and messaging apps made in the last decade, and at the same bitrate it sounds better. If your source track is already MP3 (common in MKV files), a passthrough to .mp3 that needs no encoder is planned.
Good to know
- A video with no audio track shows a clear message; no empty file is produced.
- Mono voice memos stay mono; nothing is upmixed.
- HE-AAC (the low-bitrate flavour used by some streaming captures) copies fine; if decoded to WAV, the full sample rate is restored.
- Metadata: the M4A gets a title from the sanitised file name (you can edit it later). Device and location data are never written.
Related tools and guides
Questions people ask
Is this lossless?
M4A (copy) is: the AAC frames are the exact bytes from the video. WAV is a faithful decode with nothing added. M4A (AAC 192 kbps) re-encodes, which is necessary for Opus, MP3, PCM, FLAC and ALAC sources, and is transparent for speech.
Which should I pick?
The preselected option. M4A (copy) when it is available, because it is instant and perfect. WAV only if you are going to edit the sound in another app.
Why is the WAV so big?
WAV is uncompressed: 16-bit stereo at 48 kHz is 192,000 bytes every second, about 11.5 MB per minute. That is the point of WAV for editing, and the reason M4A is better for everything else.
Why no MP3?
No MP3 encoder with a licence that fits ClipHeron’s open-source engine exists. M4A plays everywhere MP3 does and sounds better at the same bitrate. MP3 passthrough for sources that are already MP3 is planned.
Is my video uploaded?
No. The audio is read from the file on your device and written back to it. We never receive the video, its sound or its name. See how it works.
Can I pick which audio track?
The default track is used in this release. A track picker for videos with several languages or a commentary track is planned.
What happens to your video
Processed on your device. Your video is never uploaded. ClipHeron runs in your browser. We don’t receive your videos, their names or anything in them. Ads on this page load separately and are not given your files.
Reading the container, copying or decoding the audio and writing the output all happen in a background worker on your device. The result is created in memory or the browser’s private temporary storage and handed to your download. Your output choice is remembered in local storage; the file and its name are not.
The page does load advertising and analytics scripts, separate from the tool and described in our privacy policy. They are never given your files.
Sources and review
- ISO/IEC 14496-3: MPEG-4 Audio (AAC)
- Microsoft: WAVE (RIFF) file format and the 4 GB/2 GB limits
- RFC 6716: Definition of the Opus Audio Codec
Page reviewed by the ClipHeron team · How it works · Changelog · Report a problem