Convert MP4 to MP3

When you need MP3 from an MP4

Common cases are saving a song or speech from a video you recorded, pulling the audio out of a lecture or meeting recording to listen on the go, or cutting a short sound clip for a ringtone or a video edit. MP3 plays on almost every phone, car stereo and media player.

The file is read and converted in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

How to extract MP3 from MP4

1. Drop the MP4 file in the area above. MP3 is already selected as the output format.
2. Wait for the waveform to appear. Drag across it to select the part to keep. To keep the whole audio track, leave the full range selected.
3. Drag the white handles to adjust the start and end. Scroll the mouse wheel over the waveform to zoom in for exact cuts.
4. Press Space or Play selection to listen to only the selected part.
5. Choose a bitrate, turn on fade in or fade out if you want, and click Save audio.

Which bitrate to choose

• 128 kbps: speech, lectures, podcasts. About 1 MB per minute.
• 192 kbps: the default. Fine for most music.
• 256 to 320 kbps: music when the source video has high-quality audio. About 2.4 MB per minute at 320 kbps.

A higher bitrate cannot add quality the video did not have. Phone videos usually carry AAC audio at about 128 to 256 kbps, so 320 kbps only makes the file bigger.

Tips

• For exact cuts, type times into the start and end fields, for example 1:23.45.
• Short fades (0.5 to 1 second) remove the click you sometimes hear when audio starts or stops mid-sound.
• The first MP3 export downloads the conversion engine (about 31 MB). Later exports start right away.

Making a ringtone or short clip

For a ringtone, select about 20 to 30 seconds, zoom in on the waveform so the start lands on a beat, and add a 1-second fade out. Android accepts MP3 ringtones directly. For iPhone, choose M4A instead of MP3, because iPhone ringtones use the AAC format. The selection can be as short as you like, so this is also a quick way to cut a sound effect out of a longer video.