MP4 to MP3
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Drop your .mp4 file here
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MP4 to MP3 strips the video stream out of an MP4 file entirely and re-encodes the remaining audio as a standalone MP3. It's the tool for when a video file is really just a container for sound you care about — a downloaded lecture, a Zoom or Teams recording where nobody's face is doing anything interesting, a screen capture of a webinar, or a music video you only ever listen to. Since the video data is the overwhelming majority of most MP4 files' size, what comes out the other end is typically a tiny fraction of the original file.
MP4's audio track is almost always AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), the codec Apple, YouTube, and most modern recording and streaming software settled on as the default because it's genuinely more efficient than MP3 at the same bitrate — AAC was designed later and takes advantage of psychoacoustic modeling improvements MP3 predates. So converting MP4 to MP3 is, strictly speaking, a step down in compression efficiency. The reason people still do it constantly comes down to one thing: MP3 is the most universally playable audio format that has ever existed. Car stereos from the 2000s, dedicated MP3 players, ancient iPods, cheap Bluetooth speakers, DJ software, and basically every audio app ever written support MP3 without question, while some of that older hardware has spotty or nonexistent AAC support outside of Apple's own ecosystem.
The conversion uses libmp3lame at quality level 2, LAME's variable-bitrate setting that targets roughly 190kbps and is widely documented as transparent — meaning listeners in controlled blind tests generally cannot distinguish it from the source at normal listening levels. VBR encoding means the bitrate isn't fixed; quiet stretches (silence between sentences in a recorded meeting, for instance) use fewer bits, while denser passages use more, so the final file size tracks the actual complexity of the audio rather than being padded uniformly like a constant-bitrate encode would be.
Because the video stream is discarded before any decoding happens — FFmpeg's -vn flag tells it to ignore the video track completely — this conversion is fast even on long files. A two-hour recorded webinar extracts its audio in a fraction of the time a full video re-encode would take, since the CPU only has to process the audio stream. Everything runs locally through FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly, so recordings you'd rather not upload to a third-party audio extraction site — internal meetings, personal video diaries, unreleased music — never leave your browser tab.
FFmpeg opens the MP4 container and immediately discards the video stream using the -vn flag, so no video frame is ever decoded. The existing AAC audio is decoded and re-encoded through libmp3lame at quality level 2, a VBR setting averaging around 190kbps that's widely considered transparent for typical listening. Because video processing is skipped entirely, extraction speed is limited by how quickly the audio track itself can be re-encoded, which is markedly faster than any full video conversion.
Upload your MP4 file
Drop a downloaded video, recorded meeting, or screen capture onto the upload zone — or click to browse for it.
Confirm the file
Check the filename and size shown to make sure it's the recording you meant to extract audio from.
Click Convert to MP3
FFmpeg discards the video track with the -vn flag and re-encodes the existing audio through libmp3lame at VBR quality 2.
Wait for the fast extraction
Because video decoding is skipped entirely, this finishes noticeably quicker than a full video format conversion, even on long recordings.
Download the MP3
Save the resulting audio file — it keeps your original filename with a .mp3 extension.
Play it back to confirm
Open the MP3 in any player to verify the audio extracted cleanly before deleting the source video if you no longer need it.
Meeting & Webinar Recordings
Pull the audio from a recorded Zoom or Teams call so it can be relistened to, transcribed, or archived without the multi-gigabyte video file.
Podcast Production
Extract dialogue from an MP4 interview recording to bring into Audacity, GarageBand, or podcast editing software as a clean audio track.
Lecture & Course Audio
Turn a downloaded course video into an MP3 you can listen to during a commute or workout without the screen.
Language Learning Clips
Extract spoken dialogue from MP4 videos to build listening-practice audio files for language study.
Legacy Hardware Playback
Convert to MP3 for car stereos, dedicated MP3 players, and older Bluetooth speakers that handle MP3 more reliably than AAC.
Isolating Narration or Score
Separate narration, voiceover, or a music track from an MP4 export before bringing it into a separate audio editing timeline.
Skips Video Decoding Entirely
The -vn flag discards the video track immediately, making extraction far faster than any full video transcode.
Transparent VBR Quality
libmp3lame quality level 2 targets ~190kbps VBR, a setting widely regarded as indistinguishable from the source for typical listening.
Broadest Possible Compatibility
MP3 plays on hardware and software that AAC sometimes does not, from old car stereos to standalone MP3 players.
Fully Local Processing
FFmpeg WebAssembly handles the extraction inside your browser tab — recordings are never sent to a server.
No Server-Side Size Cap
Local processing means no artificial ceiling on the source video length or file size beyond your account plan.
Free, No Watermark
Free with no account for files under 40 MB; sign up free for 80 MB or go Pro for 250 MB — output is never watermarked.
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