Skip to content
Rescreen
Signup
Menu

Rescreen / Free tools / MOV to WAV

MOV to WAV converter

Drop a MOV here and get its sound as an uncompressed WAV, with no further quality lost.

Convert a MOV file to WAV

Drop a MOV file here

or choose one from your device

Up to 2.0 GB. Stays on your device.

How to convert MOV to WAV

Three steps, all on this page.

  1. Choose your MOV

    Choose or drop a MOV file. The page reads what is inside and checks that this browser can convert it before anything starts.

  2. Convert to WAV

    Pick the options you want, then press Convert to WAV. The sound is decoded into plain, uncompressed samples, which takes seconds even for a long file.

  3. Check and download

    The new file is opened again and checked against the original before it is offered. Listen in the preview, then download it.

What changes from MOV to WAV

  • MOV is Apple’s QuickTime container. MDN lists AAC, HE-AAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC), MP3, ADPCM, µ-Law and A-Law among the sound formats it can hold. Source
  • MDN: nearly all WAV files hold linear PCM, which every major browser supports. WAV “contains uncompressed PCM audio, delivering the highest fidelity at the cost of larger file sizes”. Source
  • AAC is lossy. Apple Lossless keeps every sample and supports 16, 20, 24 and 32-bit depths. Source
  • An iPhone set to High Efficiency (Settings › Camera › Formats) records video in HEVC; Most Compatible records H.264. Source
  • QuickTime Player’s File › Export As › Audio Only writes “an Apple MPEG 4 audio file with an AAC audio track”: an M4A, not a WAV. Source
  • CD audio is 16-bit stereo at 44.1 kHz; DVD audio is recorded at 48 kHz. By MDN’s arithmetic, a second of 16-bit stereo at 48 kHz is 192,000 bytes. Source
  • Audacity opens the sound of most video files only with its optional FFmpeg library installed, and exports WAV as signed 16-bit PCM by default. Source

MOV file

MOV (QuickTime)

  • PictureH.264, HEVC or ProRes
  • SoundAAC or PCM

WAV file

WAV

  • Picturenone
  • Sound16-bit PCM, uncompressed

Who converts MOV to WAV

Mac and iPhone owners taking the sound out of a video to use it in an audio program. A song or rehearsal filmed on a phone going into GarageBand, Logic or Ableton; an interview recorded on a camera going into a podcast edit; a field recording of birdsong for an identification site; a Mac screen recording of a talk going to a transcription service. QuickTime Player can save the sound of a MOV, but only as M4A, and many of these programs and upload forms ask for WAV by name.

HEVC, ProRes or H.264: the picture does not matter

A WAV holds sound and nothing else, so this page never opens the picture in your MOV. That is what lets an iPhone video shot in High Efficiency (HEVC) convert in Firefox, which cannot play HEVC on most computers, and a ProRes file from Final Cut Pro or an iPhone Pro convert in any browser, though none of them can show ProRes. Only the sound track is decoded.

It is also why a large video is quick. The picture is nearly all of a MOV’s size, and none of it is read. A three-minute 1080p HEVC MOV of 173 MB became a WAV in 0.4 s in Chrome and about a second in Firefox and Safari’s engine on an M1 Mac.

What happens to each kind of sound in a MOV

A MOV can carry its sound several ways, and the page tells you which it found before you convert. Every WAV it writes is 16-bit PCM, the format nearly every editor, DAW and upload form accepts.

  • AAC, which iPhones, iPads and QuickTime screen recordings use: decoded to plain samples. It sounds exactly like the video; what AAC threw away when the video was saved cannot be brought back.
  • 16-bit PCM, common in ProRes and other editing files: already what a WAV holds, so it is copied across without re-encoding and the page says so. Not one sample changes.
  • 24-bit or 32-bit PCM, from cameras, field recorders and editing exports: written as 16-bit, the depth of a CD. If your project needs the 24 bits, use ffmpeg or Audacity (below), which can keep them.
  • Apple Lossless: decoded by the page itself, since no browser except Safari can, so the WAV holds exactly the same samples.

Choosing the sample rate

The page shows the sound’s rate as soon as you add the MOV, usually 48,000 or 44,100 Hz. Keep the original, the default, writes that rate unchanged, so nothing is resampled, which is the right choice unless something asks for another.

Pick 44,100 Hz for a music project or a CD, 48,000 Hz to match a video timeline when the source is something else, and 8,000 Hz with Mono for a phone system greeting. Mono on its own halves the file and suits a single voice; a phone’s two microphones rarely add anything a transcription or a podcast edit needs.

How big the WAV comes out

A WAV’s size depends only on its length, rate and channels, never on how big or sharp the video was. So a 173 MB iPhone video and a 157 MB ProRes file give WAVs of 34.6 MB and 11.5 MB: one is three minutes long, the other one minute. At 48,000 Hz stereo, every minute is about 11.5 MB.

The page builds the WAV in your browser’s memory, up to 2 GB, which is about three hours at 48 kHz stereo. Longer than that, choose Mono or a lower rate; it warns you before it starts.

WAV setting3:00 iPhone video (AAC)1:00 ProRes file (24-bit PCM)
Original rate and channels34.6 MB in 0.4 s11.5 MB in 0.1 s
44,100 Hz, mono15.9 MB in 0.5 s5.3 MB in 0.3 s
8,000 Hz, mono2.9 MB in 0.3 s960 KB in 0.1 s
The 3:00 video is a 173.3 MB 1080p HEVC MOV with 160 kbps stereo AAC at 48 kHz, the shape an iPhone saves. The 1:00 file is a 157.1 MB 1080p ProRes 422 Proxy MOV with 24-bit stereo PCM at 48 kHz, as an editor exports. Converted with this page in Chrome 155 on an M1 MacBook Pro, macOS 15.8.1. Every WAV came out the length of the sound in the video, within 0.011 s.

Mac screen recordings

QuickTime Player and the Screenshot toolbar both save screen recordings as MOV, and converting one gives you whatever sound it captured. By default macOS records the microphone and not the computer’s own sound, so a recording of a video call may have only your side of it. The guide to screen recording on a Mac explains the settings that change that, before you record the next one.

If you only want the words from a recording, the video to text tool transcribes the MOV directly in your browser, with no WAV step.

When not to convert

A WAV will not clean anything up. Wind on an iPhone microphone, a voice too far from the camera or a hum from a power supply comes through exactly as it was, in a file seven to ten times larger than the sound inside the video. The WAV is a good thing to give a noise-reduction tool, but converting is not the fix.

Check first whether you need a WAV at all. GarageBand, Logic, Final Cut Pro, Premiere and most transcription services open a MOV directly and use its sound. If you want a small audio file to send or listen to, an MP3 is about a tenth of the size. And keep the MOV: the WAV has no picture to go back to.

Other ways to convert MOV to WAV

QuickTime Player, then the Music app Mac

  1. Open the MOV in QuickTime Player and choose File › Export As › Audio Only. This saves an M4A.
  2. In the Music app, open Music › Settings › Files › Import Settings and set Import Using to WAV Encoder.
  3. Drag the M4A into Music, select it and choose File › Convert › Create WAV Version.

Built into every Mac, but two apps and two files, and the M4A step is lossy AAC, so the WAV is a copy of a copy. Fine for speech; this page decodes the original sound directly.

Audacity Windows, Mac or Linux

  1. Install Audacity and its FFmpeg library; Edit › Preferences › Libraries shows whether it is found.
  2. Choose File › Import › Audio and pick the MOV.
  3. Choose File › Export Audio, set the type to WAV, and choose the sample rate and encoding: Signed 16-bit PCM, or Signed 24-bit PCM to keep a camera’s 24 bits.

Free and offline, and you can trim the start and end or reduce noise before saving.

ffmpeg Any computer, from the command line

  1. Install ffmpeg (on a Mac with Homebrew: brew install ffmpeg).
  2. Run ffmpeg -i video.mov -vn -c:a pcm_s16le video.wav for 16-bit, or -c:a pcm_s24le to keep 24-bit sound.
  3. Add -ar 44100 or -ac 1 before the output name to change the rate or mix to mono.

The way to convert a whole folder of MOVs, and to keep 24-bit sound, which this page writes as 16-bit.

Frequently asked questions

Can QuickTime Player save a MOV as WAV?

Not directly. Its Audio Only export saves an M4A with AAC sound. To get a WAV on a Mac, convert the MOV on this page, or turn that M4A into a WAV with the Music app’s Create WAV Version.

How do I convert a large MOV to WAV?

Here, size is not the problem: the file never leaves your computer, and the page reads only the sound, so a video of several gigabytes converts in seconds. The WAV itself can be up to 2 GB, about three hours of stereo sound.

Does converting MOV to WAV lose quality?

No. A WAV is uncompressed, so it holds the sound exactly as the MOV decodes. If the MOV’s sound is already 16-bit PCM it is copied untouched. The one change is 24-bit sound, which is written as 16-bit.

Will this work with videos from my iPhone?

Yes, including HEVC videos from the High Efficiency camera setting, in any current browser. AirDrop or copy the video to your computer first, then drop it here.

Is the MOV uploaded anywhere?

No. The conversion runs in your browser on your own computer, so the video and the WAV never leave it. That also means no size limit from a server and no waiting for an upload.

Is my file uploaded?

No. Your MOV is read, converted and checked on your own computer, so there is no upload and no queue. In Chrome and Edge on a computer files of any size work, written straight to a file you choose; in other browsers, files up to 2.0 GB. We count anonymous page views and whether a conversion worked; when one fails, the event also carries the step, your browser’s error and the file’s codecs, size and length in broad bands, never the file or its name. If a conversion fails you can choose to send us the file, which is deleted within 30 days. See the privacy policy.

See all tools

Spend less time editing
your next recording.

Create an account and record your first video in your browser.

Sign Up Free

No credit card required