MP4 to MP3 on Windows 11 and Windows 10

Windows has never shipped a real audio converter. Here is what the built-in tools can and cannot do, and the route that takes ten seconds.

Windows has never shipped a straightforward "turn this video into an MP3" button, which is why this search is as common as it is. Here is what the machine in front of you can already do, and what it cannot.

The fastest route

Open the extractor in Edge, Chrome or Firefox, drag the MP4 onto it, pick a bitrate and download the MP3. Nothing installs and nothing uploads — the conversion runs in the browser, which you can verify by disconnecting the network after the page loads.

The rest of this page is for when you would rather use something already on the PC, or when you have hundreds of files and want a command.

Windows Media Player cannot do it

It plays video and it rips CDs, and people reasonably assume those two facts combine into "converts video to MP3". They do not: there is no conversion option for a video file anywhere in Media Player, in either the classic version or the newer Media Player app. Nothing you enable changes this.

Clipchamp: yes, with a caveat

Windows 11 ships Clipchamp, Microsoft's video editor, and it can export audio on its own.

1. Open Clipchamp and start a new project.
2. Import the MP4 and drag it onto the timeline.
3. Export → choose the Audio (MP3) option rather than a video resolution.

The caveat is that Clipchamp is an editor: it imports, transcodes and renders the whole file, so a long recording takes a while, and some builds want you signed in. It is a reasonable choice if you are editing anyway, and heavy machinery if you only want the soundtrack.

There is no built-in command

Windows has no bundled tool that transcodes audio from a container — no PowerShell cmdlet, nothing in the shell. Any command-line answer you find involves installing something, and the thing worth installing is FFmpeg.

FFmpeg, if you have many files

Install it with winget install Gyan.FFmpeg in a terminal, then:

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 192k audio.mp3

Or, for a folder, in PowerShell:

Get-ChildItem *.mp4 | ForEach-Object {
  ffmpeg -i $_.Name -vn -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 192k "$($_.BaseName).mp3"
}

And the one worth knowing about: if you do not specifically need MP3, this takes the soundtrack out without re-encoding it, which is instant and lossless.

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -c:a copy audio.m4a

The full set of FFmpeg commands, including picking a soundtrack and trimming, is here.

VLC, if it is already installed

VLC converts, through Media → Convert / Save. It also has a well-earned reputation for producing 4 KB files when the profile does not match the input, so if you go that way, follow the settings in this guide rather than the defaults.

Which to use

A note on quality, since Windows guides rarely mention it

An MP4's soundtrack is AAC. Every MP3 you make from it is a second lossy encode: audible on a bad day at 128 kbps, effectively inaudible at 192, and never an improvement no matter how high you set it. If the file is for your own use, M4A keeps the original audio exactly and Windows 10 and 11 play it natively. The reasoning in full.