Free browser tool
Get the audio out of a QuickTime file
Drop a MOV in and keep only the sound. The conversion happens in this tab, so the recording stays on your machine.
- No sign up
- Nothing uploaded
- No queue
- Up to 300 MB a file
Drop a MOV in
Drag a file onto this panel or open one. It is converted to MP3 in this tab, on your own machine, and never uploaded.
A screen recording is mostly picture
A one hour Mac screen recording is often several hundred megabytes, and almost all of that is the screen. The audio inside it is about 25 MB. If what you need is the conversation, the meeting, the lecture or the voiceover, the MP3 is the file worth keeping and sending.
How it works here
This page is ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly. The QuickTime container is opened in the tab, the audio track is decoded out of it, and an MP3 is written at 192 kbps at the recording's own sample rate, which for a Mac recording is 48 kHz.
Nothing is uploaded. The MOV is read from your disk and the MP3 is written back to it, and no server is involved at any point. For a recording of a customer call or an internal tool, that is not a detail.
When there is no audio at all
QuickTime's screen recorder captures the microphone and nothing else unless you have routed system audio into it. A recording made with the microphone off has no audio track, so there is nothing to extract and the page says so rather than handing back an empty file.
Transcribing it afterwards
An MP3 is what most transcription services want, and this is the quickest way to make one. If the recording is still on your Mac, Prequel transcribes it there, with the model running locally, and writes the captions onto the video rather than into a separate document.
How it works
Converting in 3 steps
- Drop the MOV inA Mac screen recording, an iPhone video or a QuickTime export, up to 300 MB.
- ConvertThe audio track is decoded out of the QuickTime container and written as a 192 kbps MP3.
- DownloadThe MP3 arrives named after the recording it came from, ready to send or transcribe.
What it does
Free, and still worth using
Turn a recorded call into something sendable
A one hour QuickTime screen recording is often several hundred megabytes. Its audio is about 25 MB, which attaches to an email and uploads to a transcription service in seconds.
Keep the recording to yourself
The file is decoded in this tab by ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly. A recording of an internal call or a customer's screen is never handed to a server.
Work with what QuickTime recorded
Mac screen recordings carry AAC audio inside a MOV. It is decoded and re-encoded at 192 kbps, which is past the point speech gains anything from more.
Nothing to install
No sign up, no app, no extension. The encoder downloads once per visit and the conversion runs on your own processor.
On a Mac, the editing is already done
Prequel records your screen at its full resolution, then opens an editor with the zooms already placed, your camera framed and a background applied. Export one MP4 at up to 4K.
No credit card required
- Zooms placed on every click
- Camera shaped, sized and framed
- Background, padding and shadow
- Microphone and system on separate gains
- Cursor smoothed and resized
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FAQ
QuickTime, quality and privacy
Is a MOV recording uploaded to convert it?
No. ffmpeg runs in this tab, so the QuickTime file is read from your disk and converted on your own machine. That is the difference between this page and most of the converters above it in search results.
Which MOV files does it handle?
Anything with an audio track: a Mac screen recording, an iPhone video, a QuickTime export from an editor. Even a ProRes master works, because only the audio is being decoded.
What bitrate is the MP3?
192 kbps at the recording's own sample rate, which for a Mac screen recording is 48 kHz. That is about a megabyte a minute and comfortably transparent for speech.
Can I transcribe the result?
Yes, and an MP3 is what most transcription services want. If the recording is on your Mac, Prequel transcribes it locally and writes captions onto the video instead.
Why is there no sound in my MOV?
A Mac screen recording made without the microphone or system audio enabled has no audio track at all, so there is nothing to extract. QuickTime's own recorder captures the microphone only unless you add something to route system audio.
Does it work with a two hour recording?
Up to about 300 MB, which is the tab's memory rather than a policy. A long screen recording is usually larger than that, so split it first or extract the audio on your machine.
Is the original changed?
No. Nothing here writes to the file you dropped in. You end up with the MOV you had and an MP3 beside it.
Can I record the audio separately next time?
Yes. Prequel records your microphone and your Mac's system audio on separate tracks with separate gains, so the audio is already its own thing when the take finishes.