MOV to MP3
Converts a QuickTime .mov file to MP3 in your browser, keeping only the audio. Built for iPhone recordings, QuickTime screen captures and footage out of Final Cut. Nothing is uploaded — the video stays on your machine, which matters when the recording is private.
drop your MOV here
or click to pick. .qt files supported too.
At a glance
| Input format | .mov (QuickTime), plus .mp4 and other video containers |
|---|---|
| Output format | MP3, 128 to 320 kbps |
| Audio inside a .mov | Almost always AAC; sometimes linear PCM |
| Video handling | Discarded — only the audio stream is kept |
| Batch | Yes — drop several, get a zip back |
| Practical size limit | ~500 MB per file (browser memory) |
| Uploads your file | No — runs entirely in the page |
| Signup required | No |
What actually changes
.mov is Apple's QuickTime container. Structurally it is very close to MP4 — both descend from the same specification — and the audio inside is nearly always AAC, the same codec you would find in an .m4a.
Converting to MP3 therefore does two things: it demultiplexes the container to separate the audio from the video, then transcodes that AAC audio into MP3. The second step is a lossy-to-lossy conversion, so a small amount of quality is given up. For speech — which is most of what ends up in a .mov — this is not something you will hear.
Occasionally a .mov out of a professional camera or an older Final Cut project contains uncompressed linear PCM rather than AAC. Those convert to MP3 with only one lossy step, so the result is slightly better; there is nothing you need to do differently.
When you'd want this
- An iPhone video where you only wanted the sound — a lecture, a rehearsal, a conversation you filmed because the camera was the fastest thing to reach for.
- QuickTime screen recordings on a Mac, which save as .mov and are frequently made just to capture what was said.
- Final Cut Pro exports, when you need an audio-only version for review, a podcast cut or a transcription pass.
- Sending a recording to someone without shipping a multi-gigabyte video, or handing it to a transcription service that bills by upload size.
- Anything you would rather not upload. An interview, a medical appointment, a client meeting — a browser-based conversion means the footage never leaves your machine, unlike the typical online converter, which uploads first and converts on a server.
Settings that matter here
For speech, 192 kbps is plenty and keeps files small — an hour of talk lands around 85 MB. For music or anything you might edit, use 320 kbps to limit what the second encode costs.
If the recording is quiet, which handheld phone video very often is, run the result through the normalizer or the amplifier afterwards rather than trying to fix it later in an editor. If it is a long recording with a lot of dead air, removing the silence first will cut both the file size and, if you are paying for transcription, the bill.
Expect the first conversion to take a moment. Video containers need a WebAssembly build of FFmpeg, which downloads on first use and is cached afterwards. This is slower than the site's audio-only conversions, which use a lighter path — a long .mov can take a minute or two, and the progress bar is real.
What you lose
The picture, and everything else in the container: timecode, any subtitle track, and chapter data. If the .mov carries more than one audio track you get the first one, with no way to choose.
A small amount of audio quality, because AAC is being re-encoded as MP3. At 320 kbps this is very hard to hear; on speech it is irrelevant.
Metadata does not survive. The creation date, location and device fields that an iPhone writes into a .mov are not carried into the MP3, so if the recording date matters, note it before you convert or keep the original file.
Very long recordings can exceed what a browser tab can hold in memory — past roughly 500 MB the conversion will fail rather than slow down. Splitting the source is the workaround.
FAQ
Does my video get uploaded?
No. The .mov is read and decoded inside your browser tab and never sent to a server. Most online converters upload the whole video first, which for a private recording is exactly what you want to avoid.
Why is this slower than the other converters?
Video containers are demultiplexed by a WebAssembly build of FFmpeg, which has to download the first time you use it and is heavier than the audio-only path. After that first load it is cached, but a long .mov still takes real time to read through.
What bitrate should I use for a voice recording?
192 kbps is more than enough for speech and keeps an hour of audio around 85 MB. Use 320 kbps if there is music in the recording or you plan to edit it further.
The audio is very quiet — can this fix that?
Not on its own. Convert first, then run the MP3 through the normalizer to hit a consistent target level, or the amplifier if you need a specific gain increase without distortion.
Does the recording date survive the conversion?
No. The creation date, location and device metadata an iPhone writes into a .mov are not carried into the MP3. Keep the original file if that information matters.