Convert MOV to AIFF — Free Online Tool
Extract and convert audio from MOV video files into AIFF, Apple's uncompressed lossless audio format. The audio stream is decoded from its original codec (typically AAC or MP3 inside MOV) and re-encoded as raw 16-bit big-endian PCM, delivering bit-perfect, studio-quality audio without any compression artifacts.
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FFmpeg Command
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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:
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DownloadHow It Works
MOV files are Apple QuickTime containers that can house a variety of audio codecs — most commonly AAC, but also MP3, FLAC, or even PCM. During this conversion, FFmpeg discards the video stream entirely and decodes the MOV's audio track to raw audio samples. Those samples are then re-encoded as pcm_s16be (signed 16-bit big-endian PCM), which is AIFF's standard uncompressed format. Because AIFF is a lossless, uncompressed container, the output file will be significantly larger than the source MOV, but the audio will be free of any lossy compression artifacts. If the source MOV contained AAC audio, this step does involve transcoding (AAC decode → PCM encode), which is a one-time quality loss from the original AAC encoding, but the AIFF output itself will not introduce any additional degradation.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg program. When running this in your browser, FFmpeg.wasm executes this command entirely locally using WebAssembly — no data leaves your machine. |
-i input.mov
|
Specifies the input file, a QuickTime MOV container. FFmpeg will read all streams inside (video, audio, subtitles, etc.) and make them available for processing in the subsequent steps. |
-c:a pcm_s16be
|
Sets the audio codec for the output to signed 16-bit big-endian PCM, which is the standard uncompressed audio format used inside AIFF files. This tells FFmpeg to decode whatever compressed audio codec (e.g., AAC) is in the MOV and re-encode it as raw, uncompressed PCM samples in the byte order AIFF expects. |
output.aiff
|
Specifies the output filename with the .aiff extension. FFmpeg uses this extension to automatically select the AIFF container format, which wraps the pcm_s16be audio stream in Apple's Audio Interchange File Format structure. The video stream from the MOV is implicitly dropped because AIFF is an audio-only container. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting a musical score or voiceover track from a Final Cut Pro MOV export to import into Logic Pro or GarageBand, which natively prefer AIFF for sample libraries and project audio.
- Archiving the audio from professional video productions in an uncompressed format so future re-edits are not subject to cumulative AAC re-encoding quality loss.
- Sending isolated audio stems from a video project to a mastering engineer who requires uncompressed AIFF files for compatibility with Pro Tools or Nuendo.
- Converting the audio track from a MOV screen recording or tutorial video into a clean AIFF file for use as broadcast-ready narration in a radio or podcast production suite.
- Extracting uncompressed audio from MOV dailies captured on an iPhone or cinema camera to create reference audio files for synchronization with a separately recorded field audio track.
- Preparing audio assets from a MOV source for upload to distribution platforms or sample packs that mandate lossless, uncompressed AIFF delivery.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on what audio codec is inside your MOV file. If the MOV contains already-compressed audio such as AAC or MP3, that audio must be decoded and then written as uncompressed PCM — the original lossy encoding represents a one-time quality reduction that already occurred when the MOV was created, and the AIFF output will faithfully preserve exactly that quality level with no further degradation. If the MOV contains lossless or uncompressed audio (such as FLAC or PCM), the conversion to AIFF will be fully lossless end-to-end. The AIFF file itself never applies any additional compression.
MOV files almost always compress their audio using a codec like AAC, which achieves typical compression ratios of 10:1 or more compared to raw audio. AIFF stores audio as uncompressed PCM samples, so a 128 kbps AAC audio track in a MOV will expand dramatically when written to AIFF — a one-hour stereo audio track at 16-bit/44.1 kHz becomes roughly 600 MB as AIFF. Additionally, the video stream from the MOV is dropped, so the AIFF contains only audio data, but the per-second audio data size is much greater than in the compressed MOV.
AIFF supports a wide range of sample rates (8 kHz through 192 kHz) and bit depths. The default command uses pcm_s16be, which is 16-bit audio — standard for CD-quality (44.1 kHz) material. If your MOV contains 24-bit or 32-bit audio from a professional camera or DAW export, you can change the codec flag to pcm_s24be or pcm_s32be to preserve the higher bit depth. The sample rate from the source MOV is automatically preserved by FFmpeg without needing an additional flag.
AIFF supports basic ID3-style metadata, but the metadata embedded in a MOV file uses Apple's QuickTime atom structure, which does not map perfectly to AIFF's metadata format. FFmpeg will attempt to transfer compatible tags such as title and artist, but complex or proprietary QuickTime metadata — including chapter markers, multiple audio track labels, and timecode data — will not be carried over into the AIFF output. For professional workflows, you should re-tag the AIFF file using a dedicated metadata editor after conversion.
Replace the codec value in the command to target a different bit depth. To output 24-bit AIFF, use '-c:a pcm_s24be'; for 32-bit integer use '-c:a pcm_s32be'; for 32-bit float use '-c:a pcm_f32be'. For example: 'ffmpeg -i input.mov -c:a pcm_s24be output.aiff'. The 's' prefix indicates signed integer PCM and 'f' indicates floating-point PCM — both are valid AIFF audio formats, though pcm_s16be and pcm_s24be are by far the most universally compatible with audio software.
Yes. On macOS or Linux, you can run a one-line shell loop: 'for f in *.mov; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a pcm_s16be "${f%.mov}.aiff"; done'. On Windows Command Prompt, use: 'for %f in (*.mov) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a pcm_s16be "%~nf.aiff"'. Each MOV file in the directory will have its audio extracted and saved as a matching AIFF file. This is especially useful for the desktop FFmpeg command displayed on this page, which handles files larger than 1 GB that exceed the browser tool's limit.
Technical Notes
AIFF uses big-endian byte ordering for its PCM data, which is reflected in the codec name pcm_s16be ('be' = big-endian). This is a deliberate design choice by Apple matching the byte order of classic Motorola 68k and PowerPC processors. Modern software on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs handles this transparently, but some older or non-Apple audio tools may only support pcm_s16le (little-endian WAV-style PCM) — in those cases, consider outputting to WAV instead. The AIFF container does not support multiple audio tracks; if your MOV file contains several audio tracks (e.g., a stereo mix plus a 5.1 surround track), FFmpeg will select the best single audio stream by default. To choose a specific track, add '-map 0:a:1' (or the appropriate index) before the output filename. AIFF also has no support for subtitles, chapter markers, or video, so all non-audio content from the MOV is silently dropped. There is no practical file size limit on the AIFF format itself, though files exceeding 4 GB may cause compatibility issues with some older software due to legacy 32-bit size field limitations in the original AIFF specification — in those cases, the AIFF-C variant or WAV (RF64) is preferable.