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I'd like to extract the audio from an mp4 video. Is there a software for Ubuntu, which does the job?

Sylvain Pineau
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empedokles
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3 Answers3

64

You can use ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i /PATH/TO/INPUT.mp4 /PATH/TO/OUTPUT.mp3

If it is not installed, you can install it with:

sudo apt install ffmpeg

You can find a help page on using ffmpeg here, by running ffmpeg --help, or man ffmpeg. On some older versions of Ubuntu it is sometimes called avconv, which is largely similar in functionality.

For the above commands you use the Terminal, which can be accessed by opening it from the dash/launcher, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T.

Stefan Bollmann
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Wilf
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    At present ffmpeg can not be installed easily on Ubuntu >= 14.04. Use avconv with same terminology instead. – Takkat Oct 21 '14 at 21:30
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    How can I keep the original audio data without re-compressing it? I have an mp4 file with aac audio. – ygoe Aug 06 '15 at 17:22
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    At a guess ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vn -c:a copy out.m4a - vn removes the video and c:a copy copies the audio track over. mp3 is a different format so it would need to be re-compressed (with e.g. ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vn -ab 250k out.mp3). – Wilf Aug 06 '15 at 18:01
15

If you don't want to use the terminal and you don't have any real demands to do the job, you can always use VLC player to do this, which is probably installed in your distribution.

  1. Open VLC player.
  2. From the menu bar, please select "Media" and then "Convert/Save".
  3. Click "Add" and select your file.
  4. Click "Convert/Save".
  5. You should then select "Audio - MP3", enter a name in the "Destination File" and then click "Start".

Your file should converted to MP3 format in no time.

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    First of all, i don't understand why i should have to "Add" to select my file when my file is already loaded and even playing. Second, it's claiming the output file exists... but it does NOT! An mp4 file exists whereas i instructed to save as mp3! The only choices are to overwrite or keep existing file, but the latter just leads me back to the same dialog box! When I select to overwrite it claims to be converting but no file appears and then the same dialog box pops up again! – Michael Feb 15 '25 at 19:41
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    Over ten years later, I get the same strange behaviour as @Michael does. – Teemu Leisti Jun 15 '25 at 06:37
  • same problem as above, any workaround? – Yan King Yin Sep 04 '25 at 16:32
  • The function is utterly useless due to the above problem. I have to use ffmpeg. – Yan King Yin Sep 04 '25 at 16:39
11

I think that the most detailed answer with several options can be found here:

How can I convert audio from MP4 or FLV video files to mp3?

Community
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sboda
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