Extract Audio from HEVC to AIFC — Free Online Tool
Extract audio from HEVC/H.265 video files and save it as AIFC, Apple's professional compressed audio format. This tool strips the video stream entirely and encodes the audio to 16-bit big-endian PCM (pcm_s16be) inside an AIFC container — ideal for high-fidelity audio extraction destined for Apple workflows or professional audio editing environments.
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FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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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:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
HEVC (H.265) video files contain separate video and audio streams multiplexed together. This tool discards the video stream entirely using the -vn flag and extracts only the audio, re-encoding it to 16-bit signed big-endian PCM (pcm_s16be) packaged in an AIFC container. AIFC is an extension of Apple's AIFF format that supports both uncompressed and compressed audio; in this case the output uses uncompressed PCM, meaning audio quality is not degraded by the codec itself — any quality ceiling comes from the source audio embedded in your HEVC file. Because the video is discarded rather than transcoded, processing is relatively fast regardless of the video resolution (even 4K or 8K HEVC sources).
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg multimedia processing tool. In the browser version this runs via FFmpeg.wasm compiled to WebAssembly, so no files leave your device; when running locally it calls your system-installed FFmpeg binary. |
-i input.hevc
|
Specifies the input HEVC video file. FFmpeg reads both the H.265 video stream and any embedded audio stream from this file; the video will be discarded in subsequent steps. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely, telling FFmpeg to ignore the H.265 video stream and produce an audio-only output. Without this flag, FFmpeg would attempt to include video in the AIFC file, which the format does not support. |
-c:a pcm_s16be
|
Encodes the extracted audio as 16-bit signed PCM with big-endian byte ordering, the standard uncompressed audio codec for AIFC/AIFF files. This produces lossless audio storage compatible with macOS and Apple professional audio tools. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets a target audio bitrate of 128 kbps. For the pcm_s16be codec used here, this parameter has no practical effect — PCM bitrate is fixed by sample rate and bit depth rather than a compression target — but it is included as part of the tool's standard audio quality parameter. |
output.aifc
|
Defines the output filename and tells FFmpeg to write an AIFC container. FFmpeg infers the AIFC format from the .aifc file extension, wrapping the pcm_s16be audio stream in the big-endian AIFF-C container structure expected by Apple software. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting a clean audio track from an HEVC-encoded iPhone or camera recording for import into Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, or other Apple-native DAWs that natively handle AIFC
- Pulling the audio from an H.265 streaming capture or screen recording to produce a voiceover or narration file for use in Apple-ecosystem post-production pipelines
- Archiving the audio portion of HDR or Dolby Vision HEVC footage separately for long-term preservation in a lossless-compatible, platform-agnostic PCM format
- Preparing audio stems from HEVC interview footage for editing in GarageBand or Pro Tools, where AIFC/AIFF files integrate without additional conversion steps
- Isolating dialogue or field-recorded audio from HEVC drone or action camera footage to clean up and sync with a separate video edit
- Converting the audio channel of an H.265 video tutorial into an AIFC file so it can be mastered and distributed as a standalone audio lesson
Frequently Asked Questions
The output audio quality is limited by whatever audio was encoded in the original HEVC file — if the source used AAC or another lossy codec, that generation of lossy compression is baked into the decoded signal before it reaches AIFC. The AIFC output itself uses pcm_s16be, which is lossless PCM, so no additional quality is lost during the AIFC encoding step. Think of it as decoding the source audio and storing the result in a lossless container; you won't make it worse, but you also can't recover quality that was already lost in the source.
AIFC's default codec in this tool is pcm_s16be — 16-bit signed PCM with big-endian byte ordering — which is the standard uncompressed format for AIFF/AIFC files used in professional Apple workflows. This gives you a clean, editing-friendly audio file with no lossy compression artifacts, making it suitable for further processing in a DAW. If you need a smaller file with lossy compression, you would be better served by extracting to AAC or MP3 instead of AIFC.
For uncompressed PCM codecs like pcm_s16be, bitrate is determined entirely by the sample rate and bit depth rather than a target bitrate parameter — so the -b:a 128k flag is effectively ignored by FFmpeg in this context. The actual bitrate of the AIFC output will be calculated as sample_rate × bit_depth × channels (e.g., 44100 Hz × 16 bits × 2 channels = 1,411 kbps for stereo CD-quality audio). The flag is included for consistency with the tool's audio quality parameter system but has no practical effect on PCM output.
You can swap pcm_s16be for another supported AIFC codec to change the bit depth. For example, use -c:a pcm_s24be for 24-bit audio (common in professional recording), -c:a pcm_s32be for 32-bit integer, or -c:a pcm_f32be and -c:a pcm_f64be for floating-point formats. The full command would look like: ffmpeg -i input.hevc -vn -c:a pcm_s24be output.aifc. Higher bit depths can be useful if your HEVC source contains high-dynamic-range audio, though most consumer content tops out at 24-bit.
Yes. On Linux or macOS you can run a shell loop: for f in *.hevc; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16be -b:a 128k "${f%.hevc}.aifc"; done. On Windows PowerShell, use: Get-ChildItem *.hevc | ForEach-Object { ffmpeg -i $_.FullName -vn -c:a pcm_s16be -b:a 128k ($_.BaseName + '.aifc') }. This is particularly valuable for processing large batches of HEVC recordings from cameras or iPhones where the browser-based tool's 1 GB file limit may be a constraint.
Basic metadata tags embedded in the HEVC container (such as creation date or camera model stored in MP4/MOV wrappers) may not transfer cleanly to AIFC, since the two containers use different metadata schemas. FFmpeg will attempt to map compatible tags, but container-specific fields like GPS coordinates or codec-level HDR metadata will be lost since they are irrelevant to a pure audio output. If preserving specific metadata is important, you can add tags manually using FFmpeg's -metadata flag, for example: -metadata title="My Recording" before the output filename.
Technical Notes
AIFC (Audio Interchange File Format Compressed) uses big-endian byte ordering inherited from its origin on Motorola-based Apple hardware, which is why the codec here is pcm_s16be rather than the little-endian pcm_s16le used in WAV files. This big-endian PCM is natively understood by macOS audio APIs and Apple professional software. The HEVC input is most commonly wrapped in an MP4 or MOV container with AAC audio; after decoding to raw PCM samples, FFmpeg re-encodes those samples into the AIFC container without any lossy compression step. File sizes will be significantly larger than the original HEVC file's audio track if the source used AAC, since PCM is uncompressed — a stereo 44.1 kHz 16-bit audio track runs approximately 10 MB per minute. AIFC does not support multiple audio tracks; if the source HEVC file has multiple audio streams, only the first (default) stream will be extracted. Chapters, subtitles, and HDR metadata from the video stream are not applicable and are discarded entirely.