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How to extract audio from a video on a Mac

By Suraj, Unloop Studio · Updated

Short answer

Open the video in QuickTime Player and choose File › Export As › Audio Only to save an M4A. For MP3 or WAV, or many files at once, use ffmpeg in Terminal.

QuickTime Player (built in)

  1. 1Open the video in QuickTime Player.
  2. 2File › Export As › Audio Only.
  3. 3Choose where to save — you get an .m4a file.

ffmpeg (any format, batch)

Install with Homebrew (brew install ffmpeg), then:

# keep original audio quality (m4a/AAC sources)
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -c:a copy output.m4a

# MP3
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -q:a 0 output.mp3

# WAV for editing
ffmpeg -i input.mov -vn output.wav

# every .mov in a folder to WAV
for f in *.mov; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn "${f%.*}.wav"; done

FAQ

Does extracting audio reduce quality?

Copying the audio stream (-c:a copy) keeps it identical. Converting to MP3 is lossy; WAV is uncompressed.