Extract Audio

Choosing the Right Audio Format

Extracting audio is the easy part — the decision that actually affects your result is which format to save it in. The five options here fall into two families: lossy formats that trade a little quality for much smaller files, and losslessformats that preserve every detail at the cost of size. Picking well means matching the format to what you'll do with the audio next.

The lossy options: MP3, AAC, and OGG

These discard sound the ear is unlikely to notice, which is why a song fits in a few megabytes. MP3 is the universal default that plays on anything. AAC is technically superior at the same bitrate and is the format behind Apple Music and YouTube. OGG(Vorbis) is a high-quality open format popular in games and on the web. For all three, bitrate controls the quality: 192 kbps is a comfortable default and 320 kbps is near-transparent for music.

The lossless options: WAV and FLAC

WAVstores raw, uncompressed audio — every sample exactly as recorded — making it large but universally editable, the standard for professional audio work. FLACcompresses that same lossless data to roughly half the size with zero quality loss, which makes it ideal for archiving music libraries. Because they keep everything, the bitrate slider doesn't apply to them.

A quick decision guide

Just want to listen or share? Choose MP3 for maximum compatibility or AAC for the best quality-per-megabyte. Planning to edit, master, or feed the audio into another tool? Start from WAV so no quality is lost along the way. Archiving a collection and want perfect copies without the bulk? FLAC is the sweet spot.