MP4 to WAV Converter
WAV is the format audio editors, DAWs and speech tools expect: plain, uncompressed PCM with no further loss each time you save. This page pulls the soundtrack out of an MP4 and writes it as a WAV file at the bit depth and sample rate you need.
Video to Audio
or drop MP4, MOV, MKV … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
Keep the source rate unless a device or app asks for one. 44.1 kHz is CD standard, 16 kHz is enough for speech recognition.
Mono halves the size of lossless files and is fine for speech.
16-bit is CD quality. Choose 24-bit only if you will edit or master the audio.
Videos with several languages or a commentary have more than one track. 1 is the main track.
Optional. Seconds (e.g. 75) or minutes:seconds (1:15). Leave empty to start at the beginning.
Optional. Same format as the start time. Leave empty to keep everything up to the end.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the MP4
Pick up to 20 videos, each up to 95 MB. Screen recordings, camera clips and exported edits all work, as do MOV, MKV and WebM files.
- 2
Set bit depth and sample rate
Bit depth starts at 16-bit and Sample rate at Same as source, normally 48 kHz for video. Choose 24-bit if the WAV is going into a mixing project, or 16 kHz mono for speech recognition.
- 3
Extract to WAV
Press Extract to WAV and download the files. Expect them to be larger than the video's audio, since nothing is compressed.
Why convert MP4 to WAV instead of MP3
WAV, introduced by Microsoft and IBM in 1991, is a simple wrapper around PCM samples: a list of numbers describing the sound wave, thousands of times per second, with no compression. That simplicity is the point. Every audio editor reads it instantly, it can be cut at any sample without decoding neighbors, and saving it again changes nothing. MP3 and AAC, by contrast, lose a little more detail each time they are decoded, edited and encoded again.
So the people who convert MP4 to WAV are usually about to do something with the sound. A video editor separating dialogue to clean noise in a dedicated tool. A musician sampling a riff from a clip. A podcaster who recorded on camera and now mixes in a DAW. A researcher feeding interviews into speech recognition. In each case WAV keeps the next steps lossless.
The price is size. Uncompressed audio costs the same number of bytes per second regardless of what is playing, silence included. The figures below are exact arithmetic from sample rate × bit depth × channels, so you can plan storage before converting a long recording.
WAV file size per minute
- 44.1 kHz · 16-bit · stereo (CD quality)
- 10.6 MB
- 48 kHz · 16-bit · stereo (typical video audio)
- 11.5 MB
- 48 kHz · 24-bit · stereo
- 17.3 MB
- 16 kHz · 16-bit · mono (speech)
- 1.9 MB
MP4
MPEG-4 video
MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is a multimedia container standardised by ISO/MPEG and based on Apple's QuickTime format. It usually holds H.264 or HEVC video with AAC audio, and can also carry subtitles, chapters and metadata. It is the most compatible video format in the world, playing on phones, browsers, TVs, game consoles and social platforms. The video inside is almost always lossy, so repeated re-encoding gradually reduces quality.
- Compression
- Lossy
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 2001 · Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
WAV
Waveform Audio File
WAV is an audio container created by Microsoft and IBM in 1991, usually holding uncompressed PCM audio. It preserves full quality, which makes it standard for recording, editing, sound effects and mastering. A minute of CD-quality stereo takes about 10 MB, so files are large. Every operating system, editor and most players open WAV, though metadata support is limited.
- Compression
- Lossless
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 1991 · Microsoft and IBM
People convert MP4 to WAV to hand a video's soundtrack to an audio editor, a DAW, a sampler or a transcription service that wants uncompressed PCM, so cleanup and re-exports add no new compression loss.
Settings that matter for an MP4 to WAV conversion
- Leave Sample rate on Same as source unless a program asks for a specific rate; resampling 48 kHz video audio to 44.1 kHz adds a step with no benefit for editing.
- Pick Channels Mono for a single microphone or a phone recording; the two stereo channels are usually identical and double the size.
- Videos with commentary or several languages carry more than one audio track; set Audio track to 2 or higher to extract the one you need.
- Use Start at and End at to extract only the passage you need from a long video, which keeps the WAV small.
- Turn on Normalise volume for quiet field recordings, but leave it off for music you plan to master yourself.
MP4 to WAV FAQ
Does converting MP4 to WAV improve the sound quality?
No. The audio in an MP4 is almost always AAC, which already discarded some detail when the video was made. WAV stores that decoded sound exactly, without a second round of compression, so it is as good as the source and no better. The gain is that edits and re-exports from here on do not add new losses.
How large is a WAV file per minute?
Stereo, 16-bit at 44.1 kHz is about 10.6 MB per minute; at 48 kHz it is 11.5 MB; 24-bit at 48 kHz is 17.3 MB. Mono halves each figure. A one-hour stereo interview at 48 kHz, 16-bit is close to 700 MB.
Should I choose 16-bit or 24-bit WAV?
16-bit, the CD standard, is enough for listening, transcription and most video edits. 24-bit gives an audio engineer more headroom when the track will be processed heavily, but it cannot recover detail that the compressed source never had.
Which sample rate do transcription tools want?
Many speech recognition engines work at 16 kHz mono internally, so a 16 kHz mono WAV uploads faster with no loss of accuracy. For music and editing keep Same as source, typically 48 kHz in video files. For an automatic transcript straight from the file, try audio to text.
Is there a maximum length for a WAV file?
The classic WAV format stores sizes in 32-bit fields, which caps a file at 4 GB, or about 6 hours 45 minutes of 44.1 kHz 16-bit stereo. With the 95 MB upload limit per video you will not reach it here.
When is MP3 the better choice?
When the file is for listening rather than editing. An MP3 at 192 kbps is about a seventh of the size of a CD-quality WAV and plays everywhere. Use MP4 to MP3 for music, lectures and anything you only want to play back.
