Want to extract and reuse the audio from a video file? There are many free audio extractors or audio tools with the audio extraction function you can find online, such as VLC, Audacity. VLC is a media player, streaming media server and converter. In a previous post, we discussed how Windows users can use VLC to Extract Audio from Video Files. Today, we will use another great, free audio and music editor, Audacity, to easily split the sound track from the attached video and save it as separate audio or music file in MP3, WAV, OGG, or other format. If you are using a Mac instead of a Windows PC, scroll down to the bottom for extra tips to grab sound tracks from videos.
About Audacity
Audacity is a very popular, free and open-source multi-track audio editor and recorder for Mac, Windows, Linux and other operating systems.
In addition to recording audio from multiple sources, Audacity can be used for post-processing of all types of audios, including effects such as normalization, trimming, and fading in and out.
Use Audacity to extract audio tracks from videos
You can use Audacity audio editor to extract audio or music from a video or movie on your PC or Mac. Here are the steps to do so on a Windows computer.
Open the Audacity sound editor on your PC. Click on the File menu, choose Open and select the video you want to extract the sound from. The video will be added to the Audacity waveform.
Then click File > Export, choose Export as MP3, Export as WAV, Export as OGG or Export Audio for more audio formats and types. Follow the on-screen tips to set metadata, choose audio quality, output folder, set file name, etc. Extracting sound tracks from video files with Audacity is so easy.
How do I export a selection of the sound track?
In the waveform or timeline, just use you mouse to scrub and select any part of the sound track. Then go to File > Export > Export Selected Audio…, and it’s quite easy to follow from there.
That’s it! You can use these steps to extract audio from a video using Audacity on your PC.
Extract audio from video on Mac
If you are on Mac, you can choose VLC, Audacity to extract sound tracks or background music files from videos or movies. Other than that, you can actually use the built-in media player on Mac, the QuickTime Player. Note that QuickTime for Windows is dead, and you should not download or use it any more for security reasons. QuickTime for Mac is still supported, but with merely security updates. If you have it on your Mac, follow these steps to extract audio from video with QuickTime on Mac.