Convert MOV to WAV
Extract uncompressed audio from a QuickTime MOV as a WAV. This is almost always a phone recording on its way into something that will not accept compressed audio — a transcription engine, an older editor, an analysis tool. The picture is discarded and the AAC soundtrack is decoded to raw samples, which is what those tools are asking for.
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Up to 50 MB. Deleted automatically after 30 minutes.
What it does
- The video stream is discarded, not re-encoded
- Uncompressed 16-bit PCM output
- Reads the AAC audio an iPhone records
- No watermark and no sign-up
How to use MOV to WAV
- 1
Add the MOV
Drop it in or choose it from your computer. Uploads are capped at 50 MB, so long recordings may need trimming first.
- 2
Convert
The video is dropped and the AAC audio is decoded to 16-bit PCM and written as a WAV.
- 3
Import it
The WAV loads into any editor or transcription tool, including those that reject compressed formats.
Recorded as video, wanted as audio
A great deal of what people film was never about the pictures. Interviews, lectures, consultations, rehearsals, a mechanic explaining a noise — the camera was running because that is what a phone does when you press record, not because anyone intended to watch it.
That footage then has to go somewhere, and where it goes decides the format. Transcription engines, speech analysis tools and older audio editors frequently accept uncompressed audio only, which is why this conversion exists at all.
How it works
The video track is discarded — not decoded and thrown away, simply not carried across — and the AAC audio is decoded to 16-bit PCM samples written into a WAV. No encoder runs on the output; WAV stores samples as they are.
Skipping the frames is why this is quick. In a phone recording the images account for nearly all the bytes.
Why uncompressed, when it sounds the same
The honest answer is that it is not about sound. It is about removing a decoder and a set of judgments from the middle of a process.
Reading a WAV needs no codec, so there is no library dependency and nothing that can interpret the file differently on a different machine. And for tools that measure rather than play — pause detection, pitch tracking, forensic comparison — a lossy encoder's model of human hearing is a variable in the measurement. Starting from raw samples removes it.
The M4A shortcut
If whatever receives the audio can read .m4a, do not decode at all. Copying the
AAC track out of the MOV into an M4A container is instant and lossless, because
nothing is being re-encoded — the audio arrives bit-for-bit as the phone recorded
it. Podcast software, most modern editors and every Apple device handle M4A.
Reach for WAV when the tool genuinely wants uncompressed samples, which is common in research and transcription and rare elsewhere.
Keep the MOV
It is a fraction of the size, it holds the same audio, and it holds the video as well. The WAV is a working file for one session; make it, use it, delete it, and extract again if you need to.
Examples
An interview filmed on a phone, for transcription
Phones record video even when the point was the conversation, and research and legal transcription tools frequently accept WAV only.
A rehearsal recording for an audio editor
Musicians film practices to listen back. Editors that predate widespread AAC support import uncompressed audio and refuse the rest.
Frequently asked questions
Does this improve the recording?
No. An iPhone records AAC, which is lossy, so the encoder discarded what it judged inaudible before the file existed. Decoding to WAV reproduces exactly what the MOV holds, at full precision. What changes is the size and what software will accept it, and neither of those is quality.
Why not convert to MP3 instead?
Because the destination decides. MP3 is right for listening and for sending — it is a tenth the size and plays everywhere. WAV is right when the tool refuses anything compressed, which transcription engines, analysis software and older editors often do. Choose by what has to open the file, not by which sounds better, because they sound the same.
The recording is an hour long — how big will the WAV be?
Roughly six hundred megabytes in stereo at CD quality, because uncompressed audio costs about ten megabytes a minute whatever it contains. If your tool takes mono, convert to mono and halve it: a phone lying on a table is not capturing a stereo image worth keeping.
Can I get the audio without decoding it?
Yes, into an M4A rather than a WAV. Copying the AAC track straight out of the MOV is instant and completely lossless, because nothing is decoded or re-encoded. That is the better route whenever the destination reads M4A. Choose WAV when it genuinely wants uncompressed samples.