Extract Audio from MOV to WAV — Free Online Tool
Extract audio from a MOV file and save it as a WAV — converting the default AAC audio track into uncompressed 16-bit PCM audio, the lossless standard used in broadcast, music production, and archival workflows. Ideal when you need a pristine, universally compatible audio file from QuickTime footage without any further generational quality loss.
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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
MOV files typically carry AAC-encoded audio alongside a video stream, packaged in Apple's QuickTime container. This conversion does two things simultaneously: it discards the video stream entirely (no video decoding or re-encoding occurs), and it decodes the AAC audio and re-encodes it into PCM signed 16-bit little-endian format — the raw, uncompressed audio data used in standard WAV files. Because AAC is a lossy codec, the WAV output will not recover quality that was lost during the original AAC encoding, but it will be a fully lossless representation of whatever audio quality was stored in the MOV. The resulting WAV file is significantly larger than the MOV's audio track because PCM stores every audio sample explicitly with no compression.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg binary — the open-source multimedia processing engine that powers this conversion both in the browser (via FFmpeg.wasm) and on the desktop. |
-i input.mov
|
Specifies the input file: a MOV (QuickTime) container, which may contain video, one or more AAC audio tracks, chapters, and other metadata streams. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely — FFmpeg will not decode, process, or include the video stream from the MOV in the output. This is essential for audio extraction and significantly speeds up processing since no video work is done. |
-c:a pcm_s16le
|
Sets the audio codec to PCM signed 16-bit little-endian, which is the standard uncompressed audio encoding used in WAV files. The AAC audio from the MOV is fully decoded and re-encoded as raw PCM samples — producing a lossless, universally compatible audio file. |
output.wav
|
Specifies the output file as a WAV container. FFmpeg infers the RIFF/WAV container format from the .wav extension, and wraps the pcm_s16le audio data in the standard WAV file structure expected by audio editors, broadcast tools, and DAWs. |
Common Use Cases
- Pulling the audio track from a QuickTime screen recording or lecture video to import into a DAW like Logic Pro or Pro Tools, which natively prefer WAV for editing
- Extracting dialogue or narration from a MOV interview recording to deliver to a broadcast or podcast production house that requires uncompressed WAV masters
- Archiving the audio from an Apple ProRes or H.264 MOV video file as a lossless WAV before the original footage is deleted or compressed further
- Preparing audio extracted from camera footage (e.g., from a Canon or Sony camera that outputs MOV) for use in video game audio engines or interactive media tools that require PCM WAV assets
- Stripping the music or ambient sound from a MOV video to run it through audio restoration software, which typically requires uncompressed PCM input
Frequently Asked Questions
Not fully — AAC is a lossy codec, so some audio quality was permanently discarded when the MOV file was originally created. Converting the AAC track to PCM WAV produces a lossless copy of what remains in the MOV, but it cannot recover what AAC compression removed. That said, the WAV will be bit-for-bit accurate to the decoded AAC signal, making it the best possible uncompressed representation of the source.
AAC compression in MOV typically achieves 8–15x file size reduction compared to uncompressed audio. When converted to PCM WAV, every audio sample is stored as raw binary data — for standard stereo audio at 16-bit/48kHz, that's roughly 5.5 MB per minute per channel. A 10-minute MOV with a small AAC audio track could yield a WAV file 60–100 MB in size.
By default, FFmpeg selects only the first (or best-ranked) audio stream when extracting to WAV, because the WAV container does not support multiple audio tracks. If your MOV contains multiple audio streams — for example, separate tracks for dialogue and ambient sound — only one will be extracted. To extract a specific track, you would add a flag like -map 0:a:1 to select the second audio stream.
The pcm_s16le codec produces 16-bit signed integer audio, and FFmpeg will preserve the sample rate of the source MOV audio — typically 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz for camera footage. If you need 24-bit audio (common in professional audio workflows), you would change -c:a pcm_s16le to -c:a pcm_s24le in the command.
You can add time-trimming flags directly to the command. For example, to extract 30 seconds starting at the 1-minute mark: ffmpeg -ss 00:01:00 -i input.mov -t 30 -vn -c:a pcm_s16le output.wav. Using -ss before -i enables fast seeking, and -t specifies the duration in seconds. This is useful for pulling a specific clip, cue, or music segment from a longer QuickTime file.
Yes. On macOS or Linux, you can run: for f in *.mov; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16le "${f%.mov}.wav"; done. On Windows Command Prompt: for %f in (*.mov) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -vn -c:a pcm_s16le "%~nf.wav". This loops over every MOV in the current directory and produces a matching WAV file, preserving the base filename.
Technical Notes
The WAV container produced by this conversion uses the standard RIFF/WAV format with a PCM data chunk, which is compatible with virtually every piece of audio software, hardware sampler, video editing application, and broadcast playout system. The pcm_s16le codec specifically means 16-bit depth, signed integers, little-endian byte order — the canonical WAV format defined in the original Microsoft/IBM specification. MOV files can technically carry audio in formats other than AAC (including FLAC, Opus, MP3, or even PCM), but AAC is by far the most common in real-world QuickTime files. When the source MOV already contains PCM audio (rare but possible in professional Apple workflows), this command still works correctly, functioning as a container remux rather than a true transcode. Metadata such as chapter markers, timecode tracks, and subtitle streams present in the MOV are not preserved in the WAV output, as the WAV format does not support them. If metadata preservation is important, consider embedding it in a sidecar file or using a format like AIFF or FLAC as the output instead.