Mac
On Mac: save the sound as M4A with QuickTime Player
- Open the video in QuickTime Player.
- Choose File > Export As > Audio Only.
- Name the file, choose where to save it and click Save. You get an AAC audio file ending in .m4a.
Extract audio from a video
Copy a video's sound track out exactly as it was recorded, usually as M4A, or save it as MP3 or uncompressed WAV. Nothing is uploaded, and there’s no account, watermark or limit.
- 1. Drop files
- 2. Adjust
- 3. Download
- No upload. Processing happens on your device.
- No limits. As many files as you like, free.
- No watermark. Your files stay exactly yours.
How to extract the audio track from a video with filetidy
- 1
Drop one or more videos on “Drop MP4 / MOV / WebM / MKV files here”, or tap it to choose them.
- 2
Under “Audio format”, keep “Original quality (fastest)”, or choose “MP3” (192 kbps) or “WAV (uncompressed)”.
- 3
Read the note on each row, for example “Original AAC audio, saved as .m4a without re-encoding”, then press “Extract audio from 1 video” (the number matches your files).
- 4
Click Download next to each finished file, or “Download all (.zip)” when there are several.
Lossless extraction: copying the track instead of converting it
Inside a video file, the sound is a separate compressed stream next to the picture. With “Original quality (fastest)”, filetidy lifts that stream out and wraps it in an audio-only file without decoding it. Nothing is re-encoded, so the sound is bit-identical to what the camera or phone recorded, and the job takes seconds even for an hour of audio.
The file type you get depends on the codec inside. AAC, used by nearly every phone, camera and MP4, goes into .m4a. MP3 sound stays .mp3, Opus or Vorbis from WebM videos goes into .ogg, FLAC stays .flac and PCM becomes .wav. Codecs that have no simple standalone audio file, mainly AC-3, E-AC-3 and DTS in MKV films, are re-encoded to AAC in .m4a instead.
M4A is just the audio-only flavour of MP4. It plays in the Music app on iPhone and Mac, in Windows Media Player and the newer Media Player app on Windows 11, in VLC, in browsers and on Android phones, and it imports into most editors and transcription services.
WAV stores raw 16-bit samples with no compression at all. At 44.1 kHz in stereo that is 176,400 bytes per second, about 10.6 MB per minute, and video sound is often 48 kHz, which gives about 11.5 MB per minute.
- Original quality
- Stream copied as is: no re-encoding, no quality loss, takes seconds
- AAC (most videos)
- Saved as .m4a
- Other codecs
- MP3 → .mp3, Opus/Vorbis → .ogg, FLAC → .flac, PCM → .wav
- AC-3, E-AC-3, DTS
- Re-encoded to AAC in .m4a
- MP3 option
- 192 kbps, about 1.4 MB per minute
- WAV option
- 16-bit PCM, ≈ 10.6 MB per minute at 44.1 kHz stereo
Other ways to do it
Windows
On Windows: get a WAV for editing with Audacity
- Install Audacity, then add the FFmpeg library it asks for so it can read video files.
- Choose File > Import > Audio and pick the video; its sound appears as a waveform.
- Choose File > Export Audio, select WAV as the format and save.
In older Audacity versions the command is File > Export > Export as WAV. Audacity always decodes the sound, so this is never a bit-identical copy of the original track.
Original, MP3 or WAV: which to pick
Choose Original whenever you can. It is the fastest, adds zero loss and keeps the file as small as the sound already was. For a phone video that means an .m4a that any modern phone, computer or podcast app plays.
Choose WAV when the audio is going into an editor such as Audacity, GarageBand, Reaper or another DAW for cutting, noise reduction or mixing. Editors work on uncompressed samples anyway, and WAV avoids any decoding quirks. Expect large files; convert the finished edit to a compressed format afterwards.
Choose MP3 only when a device or service insists on .mp3, such as an old car stereo or a submission form. It means one extra lossy encoding at 192 kbps, which few people can hear, but it is no longer the untouched original.
Frequently asked questions
Is the extracted audio really identical to the original?
With “Original quality (fastest)” and an AAC, MP3, Opus, Vorbis, FLAC or PCM track, yes: the compressed audio packets are copied into the new file unchanged, only the container around them differs. The row note confirms it with “without re-encoding”. MP3 and WAV choices, and AC-3 or DTS sources, involve decoding.
Why did I get an .m4a file and not an .mp3?
Because your video's sound is AAC, and the lossless way to store AAC on its own is an M4A file. Renaming it to .mp3 would not convert it. If you really need MP3, switch “Audio format” to “MP3” before extracting.
Will the M4A play on Windows and Android?
Yes. Windows 10 and 11 play M4A in their built-in media apps, Android has supported AAC since its early versions, and iPhones and Macs treat it as a native format. Some very old car stereos and MP3-only players are the exception.
Why is my WAV file so large?
WAV keeps every sample uncompressed: about 10 to 11.5 MB per minute in stereo, depending on whether the video was recorded at 44.1 or 48 kHz. A 30-minute recording is over 300 MB. That is normal and suits editing; for sharing, pick Original instead.
My MKV movie gave an .m4a even though the sound was AC-3. Why?
AC-3, E-AC-3 and DTS don't have a widely playable audio-only file, so filetidy re-encodes them to AAC and saves an .m4a. The row tells you in advance, with a note that the audio will be encoded rather than copied.
Does extracting audio upload my video?
No. The extraction runs in your browser on your device, and the video is never sent to a server. Original-quality copies don't even need a codec: the browser only reads the file and writes the audio packets into a new one.
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Last updated October 28, 2026