Convert MOV to AAC Online
Extract AAC audio from Apple MOV video. iPhone's original quality preserved. Free, in your browser.
.mov · up to 100 MB
What you can do
iPhone audio to AAC: original quality, instant process
Lossless stream copy
If the MOV has AAC audio (all iPhones), extraction is bit-for-bit identical to the original, no re-encoding.
100% private
Your MOV video never leaves your device. FFmpeg.wasm operates entirely in your browser.
Podcast from iPhone video
The first pipeline step: extract the AAC from the MOV and bring it to Audacity, GarageBand, or Logic.
iPhone ringtone (M4R)
Extract the AAC, rename it to .m4r and you have your custom ringtone from any video recording.
How it works
Three steps, no hassle
Upload your MOV file
Drag or select your .mov video recorded with iPhone, iPad, Canon camera, or Apple camcorder. Up to 500 MB, no signup.
AAC audio extraction
FFmpeg.wasm extracts the audio track from the QuickTime container. If audio is already AAC (as in all iPhones), it performs a direct stream copy — no re-encoding, no additional loss.
Download your AAC file
AAC audio ready for iTunes, Apple Podcasts, distributors, or rename it to .m4r to use as an iPhone ringtone.
FAQ
Got questions?
Because in most cases there is no transcoding. iPhone MOV video contains AAC-LC audio in the QuickTime container, and AAC audio in an AAC/M4A container is also AAC — they are exactly the same codec. FFmpeg simply moves the bytes of the audio track from one container to another via stream copy, which requires no decoding or re-encoding. Processing speed is essentially disk read speed. A 1 GB MOV file with a 10-minute iPhone recording can be processed in 5-15 seconds depending on your device speed.
Excellent for its purpose. iPhones record AAC-LC at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz with a bitrate of 128-256 kbps depending on model and settings. iPhone 12 and later with beamforming array microphones produce AAC audio at 256 kbps at 48 kHz that is perfectly adequate for professional podcasts, musical field recordings, and audio capture in video production. Stream copy extraction from MOV to AAC preserves exactly that quality.
Yes. Convert the .mov to AAC here, you will get a .m4a with the voice audio. That file is directly importable into Audacity, GarageBand, Logic Pro, or any audio editor for podcast production. Quality is identical to recording directly with the Voice Memos app.
Yes. Cinematic mode (introduced in iPhone 13 in 2021) records video in MOV with HEVC (H.265) format and stereo AAC-LC audio at 48 kHz / 256 kbps, the same as standard video mode. The presence of depth-of-field effect and focus tracking metadata does not affect the audio track. Convertir.ai extracts the AAC audio track from Cinematic MOV with the same efficiency as any other MOV.
FFmpeg transfers available metadata from the MOV container to the destination AAC file. iPhone MOVs include metadata such as creation date, device model (com.apple.quicktime.model), software version (com.apple.quicktime.software), and in some cases GPS coordinates (com.apple.quicktime.location.ISO6709). These are transferred to the M4A container's metadata block.
The complete workflow: 1) Convert the MOV to AAC here to extract pure audio. 2) Import the AAC into Audacity or GarageBand. 3) Apply noise reduction if needed (Audacity: Effect > Noise Reduction). 4) Normalize volume to -16 LUFS for podcast (Apple Podcasts and Spotify standard). 5) Add intro/outro music. 6) Export to MP3 at 128 kbps mono or AAC 128 kbps. 7) Upload to your distributor (Buzzsprout, Anchor, Transistor). MOV to AAC conversion is the essential first step of this pipeline.
Convert MOV to AAC: extract iPhone audio with original quality and stream copy
Converting MOV to AAC is the most efficient way to extract audio from iPhone, iPad, and Apple camera recordings because the destination format (AAC) is exactly the same codec already present in the source MOV file. The QuickTime File Format (MOV), like MP4, is an ISOBMFF container that can hold multiple types of audio streams. In iPhone recordings — the most common source of MOV files in 2025 — the audio stream is invariably AAC-LC (Advanced Audio Coding Low Complexity) specified in ISO/IEC 13818-7, sampled at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz depending on model and recording mode, at 128-256 kbps depending on quality settings. When FFmpeg extracts that AAC audio from the QuickTime MOV container and places it in an AAC or M4A container, it does not need to decode or re-encode anything: the stream copy operation copies audio bytes directly between containers, making it essentially instant and guaranteeing that the resulting audio is bit-for-bit identical to the original iPhone audio.
The main workflows requiring MOV to AAC include podcast production from video recordings, custom iPhone ringtone creation, and audio distribution for Apple Music and independent music distributors. In podcast production: the most common way to record high-quality interviews in 2025 is using iPhone 14 or later with support for ProRes or HEVC recording at 4K, with 256 kbps stereo AAC-LC audio. The podcast is extracted from that video recording. Convertir.ai extracts the AAC from the MOV preserving exactly the 256 kbps from the iPhone microphone, which the producer then takes to GarageBand, Audacity, or Adobe Audition for editing. In ringtone creation (M4R): .m4r files for iOS are exactly M4A files (MPEG-4 container with AAC audio) with the extension renamed. Extracting AAC from any MOV video and renaming it to .m4r allows creating custom ringtones from any iPhone video recording. In music distribution: independent artists who record live performances with iPhone can extract the AAC from the MOV and upload it directly to DistroKid, TuneCore, or CD Baby as distribution-quality M4A.
Convertir.ai performs MOV to AAC conversion entirely in the browser via FFmpeg.wasm. The technical process begins with analysis of the QuickTime MOV container, which uses a hierarchical atom structure (ftyp, moov, mdat, wide, free) that differs in some layers from the standard ISOBMFF atoms of MP4, though FFmpeg libavformat handles both with the same parser with automatic detection of the exact container type. The audio track is located in the atom tree moov→trak (with handler_type=soun)→mdia→minf→stbl, which contains the sample table with offsets and sizes of AAC audio frames. If the codec identified in the stsd atom is 'mp4a' with AudioSpecificConfig indicating AAC-LC, FFmpeg executes stream copy: reads the AAC frames directly from the offsets in the mdat atom and writes them into the destination container (ADTS .aac or MPEG-4 .m4a) without going through the decoder or encoder. This is the usual case with iPhone. If the codec is PCM (for professional cinema camera recordings), FFmpeg executes PCM→AAC transcoding with the native encoder at 192 kbps by default. Date, device model, and geolocation metadata from the MOV are transferred to the destination M4A container when the user chooses that format.