Convert HEVC to FLAC — Free Online Tool
Extract and convert the audio track from an HEVC/H.265 video file into a FLAC lossless audio file — preserving every detail of the original audio without any quality degradation. Ideal for archiving soundtracks, dialogue, or music from high-efficiency video sources.
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FFmpeg Command
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Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
HEVC (.hevc) files encode video using the H.265 codec, but may carry an audio stream alongside it. This conversion discards the video stream entirely and re-encodes the audio track using the FLAC codec at compression level 5. FLAC is a lossless format, meaning the resulting audio is bit-for-bit identical in quality to the source audio — only the container and codec change, not the audio data itself. The compression level only affects encode speed and file size, never audio fidelity. Because H.265 video is not involved in the output at all, no video decoding overhead affects the audio extraction quality.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which handles all media decoding, stream processing, and encoding. In this browser-based tool, FFmpeg runs locally via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) — no data leaves your machine. |
-i input.hevc
|
Specifies the input file — an HEVC elementary stream (.hevc) containing the H.265 video and audio data to be processed. FFmpeg will probe this file to detect the available audio stream for extraction. |
-c:a flac
|
Instructs FFmpeg to encode the audio stream using the FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) encoder. This ensures the extracted audio is stored with zero quality loss, making FLAC the ideal choice for archival and mastering workflows. |
-compression_level 5
|
Sets the FLAC encoder's compression effort to level 5 out of 8. This is the standard default that balances encoding speed and output file size without any effect on audio quality — FLAC is lossless at every compression level. |
output.flac
|
Defines the output file as a .flac file. The FLAC container is a pure audio format and carries no video data, so the H.265 video stream from the source HEVC file is automatically discarded in the output. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting a lossless copy of a music score or soundtrack embedded in an H.265 encoded video for archival or editing purposes
- Pulling dialogue or narration audio from an HEVC-encoded screen recording or lecture video to use in audio-only projects
- Creating a high-fidelity audio master from an HEVC source file before further lossy encoding to MP3 or AAC for streaming
- Preserving concert or live event audio from an H.265 recorded video in a format compatible with professional audio editors like Audacity or Adobe Audition
- Archiving the audio component of 4K or HDR HEVC video footage in a lossless format when the video itself is no longer needed
- Preparing audio stems extracted from HEVC footage for use in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) without introducing any additional compression artifacts
Frequently Asked Questions
No — FLAC is a lossless codec, so the audio data is preserved perfectly during this conversion. The quality of the output FLAC file is entirely determined by whatever audio was encoded in the original HEVC source. If the source audio was already lossy (e.g., AAC or AC-3 inside the HEVC container), that existing quality level is preserved but cannot be improved.
The video stream is completely discarded. FFmpeg extracts only the audio track and encodes it as FLAC. The resulting .flac file contains no video data at all. FLAC is a pure audio format and cannot carry video, so this is an audio-extraction conversion, not a video transcode.
The -compression_level flag controls how aggressively FLAC compresses the audio data, ranging from 0 (fastest, largest file) to 8 (slowest, smallest file). Level 5 is the widely recommended default and offers a good balance between encode speed and file size. Crucially, every compression level produces identical audio quality — only file size and encoding time differ. For faster extraction from large HEVC files, you could use level 0; for the smallest possible archive file, use level 8.
Replace the number after -compression_level with any integer from 0 to 8. For example, to use maximum compression, run: ffmpeg -i input.hevc -c:a flac -compression_level 8 output.flac. To prioritize speed over file size, use -compression_level 0. Remember that this has no effect on audio quality — all levels are lossless.
Yes. On Linux or macOS, you can use a shell loop: for f in *.hevc; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a flac -compression_level 5 "${f%.hevc}.flac"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.hevc) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a flac -compression_level 5 "%~nf.flac". This processes each HEVC file in the current directory and outputs a correspondingly named FLAC file.
FFmpeg will attempt to copy any metadata tags present in the source HEVC file to the FLAC output. However, HEVC container files (.hevc) are raw bitstream files that typically carry little or no embedded metadata, so the output FLAC may have no tags. If your source is an MP4 or MKV containing H.265 video, that container is more likely to carry metadata. You can add tags manually using FFmpeg's -metadata flag, for example: -metadata title="My Track" -metadata artist="Artist Name".
Technical Notes
Raw HEVC bitstream files (.hevc) are elementary stream containers designed primarily for video transport and do not natively support rich metadata, multiple audio tracks, subtitles, or chapters — all of which are unsupported in this conversion pipeline. The audio codec inside an HEVC source can vary (commonly AAC, AC-3, or EAC-3 depending on how the file was muxed), and FFmpeg will decode whichever audio stream is present and re-encode it to FLAC. FLAC supports up to 8 channels and sample rates up to 655,350 Hz, so high-channel-count or high-sample-rate audio from the source is well accommodated. The -x265-params log-level=error flag used internally suppresses verbose H.265 decoder logging, keeping processing output clean. Note that FLAC does not support multiple audio tracks in a single file, so if the HEVC source contains multiple audio streams, only the default stream will be extracted. For multi-track extraction, separate FFmpeg commands with explicit stream selection (-map 0:a:0, -map 0:a:1, etc.) would be required.