Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Open FormatDrop audio converter
Go to formatdrop.com/audio-converter. The converter uses FFmpeg/WebAssembly running locally in your browser. Your MP4 video file never leaves your device — particularly important for sensitive recordings like meetings, interviews, or personal videos.
Go to converter - 2
Upload your MP4 file
Drop your MP4 onto the converter. You can also use MOV, MKV, AVI, or any other video format — the converter extracts the audio track regardless of the video container. Large video files (1+ GB) work fine since there's no server upload limit.
- 3
Select WAV as the output format
Choose WAV from the format selector. WAV is PCM audio — uncompressed, lossless. The audio quality in the WAV output is identical to the original MP4's audio track (though if the MP4's audio was AAC, you're decoding AAC to PCM, which is essentially lossless in practice at normal bitrates).
- 4
Choose sample rate and bit depth
Default: 44.1 kHz / 16-bit (CD quality) — suitable for almost everything. For professional audio work: 48 kHz / 24-bit (standard for video production audio). For voice recognition or speech processing: 16 kHz / 16-bit is often the optimal format. Match the settings required by your target application.
- 5
Download and import the WAV
Download the WAV file and import it into your DAW, audio editor, or voice recognition software. WAV at 44.1 kHz / 16-bit stereo is compatible with every audio application on every platform.
Why convert MP4 to WAV?
WAV is the format audio software expects as its native working format. DAWs like Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Ableton, and Reaper import WAV natively and can edit WAV without any transcoding step in their timeline. Audio editors like Audacity, Audition, and iZotope RX work with WAV as their primary format. Voice recognition APIs (Google Cloud Speech, AWS Transcribe, OpenAI Whisper) accept WAV as a reliable input format and often produce better results from WAV than from compressed formats. When you extract audio from an MP4 to WAV, you're getting the raw PCM audio data that the MP4's AAC codec was encoding — uncompressed, ready to process. For a 10-minute MP4 video, the extracted WAV at 44.1 kHz/16-bit/stereo will be approximately 100 MB — much larger than the video's audio track in AAC, but in the format professional audio tools work best with.
Your files never leave your device
FormatDrop runs the conversion engine entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly. No file upload. No server. Nothing stored. You can verify this by opening DevTools → Network tab and watching: zero upload requests.
Frequently asked questions
Is WAV audio from MP4 lossless?
What's the difference between MP4 to WAV and MP4 to MP3?
Can I use WAV extracted from a video for professional music production?
No account. No upload. Works in any browser.