Extract Audio from HEVC to AIFF — Free Online Tool
Extract audio from HEVC/H.265 video files and save it as an uncompressed AIFF file using PCM 16-bit big-endian encoding — ideal for preserving full audio fidelity from high-efficiency video sources on macOS and in professional audio workflows.
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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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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 (H.265) video files contain a video stream and one or more audio streams encoded in formats such as AAC, AC-3, or DTS. This tool discards the video stream entirely and decodes the audio stream, then re-encodes it into PCM signed 16-bit big-endian (pcm_s16be) — the native uncompressed audio codec used in AIFF files. Unlike a remux, this is a full audio transcode: the compressed audio data is decoded to raw PCM samples and written into the AIFF container. The result is a lossless, uncompressed audio file that contains no video data, making it significantly smaller than the original HEVC file while preserving every detail the original compressed audio could represent.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg multimedia processing engine. In the browser, this runs via FFmpeg.wasm compiled to WebAssembly, so no software installation is needed and no files leave your device. |
-i input.hevc
|
Specifies the input HEVC video file. FFmpeg reads both the H.265 video stream and any audio streams present in this file — the subsequent flags determine which streams are kept and how they are processed. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely, telling FFmpeg to ignore the H.265 video stream. This is essential for audio extraction — without it, FFmpeg would attempt to include video in the AIFF container, which AIFF does not support. |
-c:a pcm_s16be
|
Sets the audio codec to PCM signed 16-bit big-endian, the standard uncompressed audio encoding used in AIFF files. This fully decodes the compressed audio (e.g., AAC or AC-3) from the HEVC source into raw PCM samples, producing a lossless, uncompressed representation at the original sample rate and channel layout. |
output.aiff
|
Defines the output filename and format. The .aiff extension tells FFmpeg to wrap the pcm_s16be audio stream in an Audio Interchange File Format container — the uncompressed audio format native to macOS and compatible with all major Apple and professional audio applications. |
Common Use Cases
- Extract the high-quality audio from an H.265-encoded film or TV episode to use as a clean source for audio editing in Logic Pro or GarageBand on macOS, where AIFF is natively supported.
- Pull the audio track from an HEVC drone or camera recording to use as a reference waveform when syncing audio in a professional post-production pipeline.
- Archive the soundtrack from an H.265 home video as an uncompressed AIFF file for long-term preservation without any further generational quality loss.
- Extract dialogue or narration from an HEVC screen recording or lecture video to edit and repurpose as a standalone audio file or podcast segment.
- Convert the audio from an HDR/4K HEVC master file to AIFF for delivery to a mastering engineer who requires uncompressed audio in an Apple-compatible format.
- Strip the audio from an H.265 encoded video clip to import into Pro Tools or Final Cut Pro as an uncompressed AIFF for precise audio sweetening.
Frequently Asked Questions
The audio in an HEVC file is typically compressed using a codec like AAC or AC-3. When this tool decodes that compressed audio and re-encodes it as uncompressed PCM in an AIFF file, no further quality is lost beyond what was already lost when the original video was encoded. The AIFF output is a lossless, bit-perfect representation of the decoded audio — but it cannot recover detail that the original lossy audio codec discarded. Think of it as 'lossless from this point forward,' not a restoration of the original recording.
HEVC video files use lossy audio codecs like AAC that achieve high compression ratios — AAC at 256 kbps might compress audio to roughly 1/5th of its uncompressed size. AIFF stores audio as raw, uncompressed PCM samples, so a 16-bit stereo file at 44.1 kHz uses about 10 MB per minute. This means a 30-minute HEVC video might have only 50–60 MB of compressed audio, but the resulting AIFF could be 300 MB or more. This is expected and is the cost of having a fully uncompressed, format-agnostic audio file.
AIFF has limited metadata support compared to containers like MP4 or MKV, and HEVC files often store metadata in format-specific ways that do not map cleanly to AIFF tags. The FFmpeg command used here does not explicitly copy metadata, so tags from the HEVC source may be partially or entirely absent in the output AIFF file. If metadata preservation is important, you may want to add it manually using a tool like Kid3 or mp3tag after conversion.
The command uses '-c:a pcm_s16be' which produces 16-bit big-endian PCM audio, the default for AIFF. To get higher bit depth, replace 'pcm_s16be' with 'pcm_s24be' for 24-bit or 'pcm_s32be' for 32-bit integer PCM. For example: 'ffmpeg -i input.hevc -vn -c:a pcm_s24be output.aiff'. Higher bit depths produce larger files but may be necessary for professional audio workflows that require headroom above 16-bit resolution.
Yes. On macOS or Linux, you can use a shell loop: 'for f in *.hevc; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16be "${f%.hevc}.aiff"; done'. On Windows Command Prompt, use: 'for %f in (*.hevc) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16be "%~nf.aiff"'. This applies the exact same conversion to every HEVC file in the current directory, which is particularly useful for handling files over 1GB that exceed the browser tool's limit.
Yes, if the HEVC source file contains no audio stream, FFmpeg will throw an error because the '-vn' flag removes video and there is nothing left to encode into the AIFF output. You can check whether your file has an audio track first by running 'ffmpeg -i input.hevc' and looking at the stream list in the output — audio streams are labeled with 'Audio:'. If no audio stream is present, no AIFF output is possible.
Technical Notes
HEVC (H.265) is a video-only compression standard — it defines how video frames are encoded but says nothing about the audio codec used alongside it. In practice, HEVC files delivered in .mp4 or .mov containers almost always carry AAC audio, while .mkv-wrapped HEVC may contain AC-3, DTS, EAC-3, or even lossless TrueHD or DTS-HD. When you extract audio to AIFF using pcm_s16be, FFmpeg fully decodes whatever compressed audio stream is present and outputs raw 16-bit samples at the original sample rate and channel count. If the source audio is multichannel (e.g., 5.1 surround), the AIFF file will also be multichannel, though DAW compatibility with multichannel AIFF varies. AIFF's big-endian byte order (the 'be' in pcm_s16be) is a legacy of Motorola 68000-based Macs and is universally supported by Apple software. One known limitation: AIFF does not support more than 2GB of audio data, so extremely long extractions at high sample rates and bit depths could theoretically hit this ceiling — in such cases, consider using AIFF's close relative WAV (pcm_s16le) which supports larger files via the RF64 extension.