Extract audio from MP4 as MP3
An MP4 is a video file, but you often only want what it sounds like. Converting MP4 to MP3 strips away the picture and gives you a small audio file you can play in the car, listen to on a run, drop into an editor or send to someone who does not need the visuals.
- Turning a recorded lecture, webinar or meeting into something you can listen to on the go.
- Keeping the audio from a concert or rehearsal you filmed on your phone.
- Pulling the voiceover or music out of your own video project.
- Making a podcast episode from a video interview.
MP4 and MP3: what is inside
MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is a container. It holds a video stream, usually H.264 or H.265, and one or more audio streams, most often AAC at 128 to 256 kbps. It is the standard format for phones, cameras, screen recorders and most video platforms.
MP3 is an audio-only lossy format from the MPEG-1 standard. It is not a video format at all, which is why MP4 to MP3 always means extracting the audio.
| MP4 | MP3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Contains | Video plus audio (usually AAC) | Audio only |
| Compression | Lossy video and lossy audio | Lossy audio |
| Typical size per minute | Tens of MB for 1080p video | 0.96 MB at 128 kbps, 2.4 MB at 320 kbps |
| Compatibility | Video players, phones, browsers | Every audio player, car stereos, podcasts |
| Best for | Watching | Listening and sharing sound |
Quality: picking the right bitrate
The audio in an MP4 is almost always AAC, which is already lossy. Re-encoding it to MP3 is a second lossy step, so a little extra detail is lost. You will not get better sound than the original video had, but with a sensible bitrate the change is hard to hear.
- Talks, lectures, meetings: 128 kbps is clear and keeps files small.
- General video audio and vlogs: 192 kbps, the default.
- Music videos, concerts, anything with a full mix: 256 or 320 kbps.
- If you plan to edit the audio further, extract to WAV instead and export the MP3 at the end.
How the MP4 to MP3 converter handles your video
The MP4 is opened in your browser. AudioDrop finds the primary audio track, decodes it with WebCodecs and encodes an MP3 with a LAME-based encoder running in WebAssembly. The video stream is never decoded, which keeps things quick even for long recordings.
Nothing is uploaded. That matters for videos of family, private meetings or client work, and it means a 2 GB video does not need to be sent across the internet first.
The MP3 keeps the sample rate of the video's audio where it can, and stereo stays stereo. A one-hour 1080p recording that takes several gigabytes as MP4 becomes an MP3 of roughly 86 MB at 192 kbps, or about 58 MB at 128 kbps.
- Free, no account, no watermark.
- Works offline once the page has loaded.
- Batch extract audio from several videos in parallel, each MP3 downloading on its own.
- No fixed size limit. Very large videos are limited by your device's memory.
Convert MP4 to MP3 on iPhone, Android, Mac and Windows
On iPhone, videos in the Photos app need saving to Files first: open the video, tap Share, then Save to Files. Then open this page in Safari and choose it. On Android, open the page in Chrome and pick the video from your gallery or storage. On Mac and Windows, drag the MP4 into the browser window. The MP3 lands in your usual downloads folder.
Only convert what you have the right to use
This tool works on files already on your device. Use it for your own recordings and for content you are allowed to copy, such as lectures you attended or footage you shot.