MyMediaTools

Extract Audio from MOV to AIFF — Free Online Tool

Extract audio from a MOV file and save it as a lossless AIFF — Apple's uncompressed audio format. This tool strips the video stream and re-encodes the audio to 16-bit big-endian PCM (pcm_s16be), preserving full audio fidelity without any lossy compression.

FFmpeg Command

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Estimated output:

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How It Works

MOV files typically carry AAC-encoded audio alongside a video stream (commonly H.264). This conversion discards the video entirely and decodes the MOV's audio — whatever codec it uses (AAC, MP3, FLAC, Opus, or Vorbis) — then re-encodes it into uncompressed PCM audio stored in an AIFF container. Because AIFF uses raw pulse-code modulation (pcm_s16be: signed 16-bit, big-endian), the output is bit-perfect within the 16-bit depth ceiling. If the source audio was lossy (e.g., AAC at 128k), re-encoding to PCM does not recover lost information — it simply stores the decoded lossy signal without further compression. If the source was lossless (e.g., FLAC inside MOV), the result is a true lossless AIFF with no generation loss.

What Each Flag Does

Flag What it does
ffmpeg Invokes the FFmpeg binary — the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles demuxing the MOV container, decoding the audio codec inside it, and encoding the output to AIFF.
-i input.mov Specifies the input file as a MOV (QuickTime) container. FFmpeg reads all streams present — video, audio, and any subtitle or chapter tracks — before applying the output mapping flags.
-vn Disables video output entirely. Since the goal is to extract audio into an AIFF file (which cannot contain video), this flag ensures no video stream is written and prevents FFmpeg from attempting to transcode or copy the H.264 or H.265 video into the output.
-c:a pcm_s16be Sets the audio codec to signed 16-bit big-endian PCM — the standard uncompressed audio encoding required by the AIFF specification. This decodes whatever audio codec was inside the MOV (typically AAC) into raw, uncompressed samples stored in big-endian byte order, as AIFF requires.
output.aiff Defines the output filename with the .aiff extension. FFmpeg uses this extension to identify the target container format as AIFF, which — combined with the pcm_s16be codec — produces a fully spec-compliant, lossless Apple Audio Interchange File.

Common Use Cases

  • Extract the audio track from a Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro MOV export to hand off to an audio engineer as a high-quality, uncompressed AIFF master file
  • Pull the original uncompressed audio from a camera-recorded MOV clip for use in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) like Logic Pro or Pro Tools, which natively prefer AIFF
  • Archive the audio from a MOV interview recording in lossless AIFF format before discarding the large video file to save storage space
  • Prepare audio from a MOV screen recording or presentation capture for inclusion in a macOS audio editing project where AIFF is the standard interchange format
  • Extract a music performance or live recording captured in MOV on an iPhone or mirrorless camera into AIFF for lossless CD mastering or vinyl production workflows
  • Isolate dialogue or voiceover from a MOV rough-cut to send for transcription or subtitle services that require a standalone, uncompressed audio file

Frequently Asked Questions

It depends entirely on the source audio codec inside the MOV. If the MOV's audio track is already lossless (e.g., FLAC or PCM), converting to AIFF with pcm_s16be preserves the signal with no quality loss. However, most MOV files — especially those from cameras or screen recorders — contain AAC audio, which is lossy. In that case, FFmpeg decodes the AAC and stores the result as uncompressed PCM, but the information discarded during original AAC encoding cannot be recovered. The AIFF will be an accurate, uncompressed representation of what the AAC sounded like, not a restoration of the original pre-compression audio.
The size difference has two causes: first, the MOV's audio was almost certainly stored as compressed AAC, which can be 10–20x smaller than uncompressed PCM for the same duration. Second, AIFF with pcm_s16be stores every audio sample as a raw 16-bit value with no compression whatsoever. A stereo AIFF at 44.1 kHz uses roughly 10 MB per minute; at 48 kHz (common in video production), about 11 MB per minute. This is expected and is what makes AIFF suitable as a lossless archive and professional interchange format.
pcm_s16be stands for signed 16-bit big-endian PCM — a raw, uncompressed audio encoding where each sample is a 16-bit integer stored with the most significant byte first (big-endian byte order). AIFF is an Apple format developed in the era of Motorola 68000 and PowerPC processors, which used big-endian architecture, so big-endian byte order is baked into the AIFF specification. By contrast, WAV (Microsoft's equivalent format) uses pcm_s16le (little-endian). Using pcm_s16be ensures the AIFF file is fully spec-compliant and readable by all macOS applications, professional DAWs, and hardware that supports AIFF.
Yes — AIFF natively supports higher bit depths including 24-bit (pcm_s24be) and 32-bit (pcm_s32be and pcm_f32be). The default command uses pcm_s16be, which gives standard CD-quality resolution. If your MOV source contains 24-bit audio (common in professional video production), you can modify the FFmpeg command to '-c:a pcm_s24be' to preserve that extra dynamic range. This is particularly relevant when working with footage from professional cinema cameras or audio recorders that capture at 24-bit depth.
Replace 'pcm_s16be' in the command with your desired codec. For 24-bit AIFF (recommended for professional audio): 'ffmpeg -i input.mov -vn -c:a pcm_s24be output.aiff'. For 32-bit integer PCM: use 'pcm_s32be'. For 32-bit floating-point (useful for audio that may clip): use 'pcm_f32be'. There is no bitrate setting for AIFF since all these codecs are uncompressed — the file size is determined solely by bit depth, sample rate, and duration. The sample rate is preserved automatically from the source MOV unless you explicitly resample with '-ar 44100' or similar.
Yes. In a terminal on macOS or Linux, you can loop over all MOV files in a directory with: 'for f in *.mov; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16be "${f%.mov}.aiff"; done'. On Windows Command Prompt, use: 'for %f in (*.mov) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16be "%~nf.aiff"'. This is especially useful for batch-extracting audio from a folder of camera clips or project exports. The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is the recommended approach for bulk conversions.

Technical Notes

AIFF does not support chapters, subtitles, or multiple audio tracks — all of which MOV can carry. This conversion extracts only the first (default) audio stream from the MOV. If your MOV contains multiple audio tracks (e.g., a separate dialogue and music mix), you would need to specify '-map 0:a:1' in the FFmpeg command to select a non-default track. Standard ID3-style metadata tags (artist, title, album) are not preserved in the conversion because AIFF's metadata support is limited compared to MOV's. Sample rate is passed through from the source unchanged — if your MOV was recorded at 48 kHz (standard for video), the AIFF output will also be 48 kHz. AIFF is a big-endian format by design and is specifically well-supported on macOS and in Apple's professional audio ecosystem (Logic Pro, GarageBand, Final Cut Pro). It is less universally compatible on Windows than WAV, though most modern DAWs on all platforms support it without issue.

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