How to Extract Audio from a Video (MP4 to MP3)

Last reviewed October 12, 2026

Sometimes you only want the sound: a lecture to listen to on a walk, a song from a concert clip, an interview to transcribe or the voice track of a screen recording. Extracting the audio from a video takes a few clicks with Anvil, and the same tool converts between video formats.

Extract the audio in five steps

Open the Media tool.
Drop your video onto the upload area, or click to browse. Files can be up to 200 MB. MP4, MOV, MKV and WebM all work.
Under Target format choose an audio format such as MP3.
Tick Extract audio only so the video is dropped and only the sound is kept.
Pick an audio bitrate if you want to, then press Convert and download the file.

Which audio format should you choose?

MP3 works on every phone, car stereo and player. It is the safe default.
M4A (AAC) gives slightly better quality than MP3 at the same size and plays on Apple devices and most modern players.
OGG is an open format with good quality at small sizes, supported by many apps and browsers.
WAV and FLAC are lossless. WAV is uncompressed and huge, FLAC is about half the size with identical sound.

A closer comparison is in the guide on MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A and OGG.

Choosing a bitrate

Bitrate is how much data is spent on each second of sound. More data means better quality and a bigger file. Anvil offers 96, 128, 160, 192, 256 and 320 kilobits per second (kbps).

96 to 128 kbps: good for spoken word such as podcasts, lectures and interviews.
160 to 192 kbps: a sensible choice for everyday music listening.
256 to 320 kbps: for music you care about, close to the limit of what MP3 can do.

A bitrate cannot add quality that the original video did not have. If the video's sound was already low quality, a high bitrate only makes the file bigger. Lossless formats like WAV and FLAC do not use a bitrate setting.

Converting video formats

The same tool changes the container and codec of a video. Choose MP4 for the widest compatibility, WebM for web pages, or MOV for Apple software, leave Extract audio only unticked, and press Convert.

Converting a video re-encodes it, which takes more time than extracting audio, especially for long or high resolution files. If your file is close to the 200 MB limit, trim it in a video editor first.

Good to know

Only extract audio from videos you own or have permission to use. Anvil cannot convert DRM-protected files.
Your video is uploaded, converted in a temporary folder and deleted right after you download the result. See the privacy page.
If you want to make a short animation instead of a video, try making a GIF from images.

Try it now

Open the Media tool. It is free, needs no account, and your files are deleted right after conversion.