SOLVED: How to Extract the Audio from a Video… For Free

A friend recently needed to send the audio of his child singing a song to an audition service but all he had was a 200MB video; what to do?  In this case, we pushed the 200MB up to my YouTube site and also stripped the audio to a stand alone 3MB .MP3 file, which he was able to email.

If you need to extract audio from a video file you can do it with the handy dandy (and free) VLC Viewer (yes, viewer):

1. Download and install VLC directly from their site videolan.org

2. Start VLC

3. Click the MEDIA menu, then CONVERT / SAVE
4. On the FILE tab, click ADD and find your video file
5. Click the CONVERT AND SAVE button (at the bottom)
6. Click BROWSE and select a destination for your file
1. make sure you end your file with .MP3
7. Select AUDIO-MP3 from the PROFILE drop down
8. Click the tools icon (just to the right of the profile… the screwdriver and wrench)
1. Click the VIDEO tab and make sure VIDEO is NOT selected
2. Click the AUDIO tab and make sure the CODEC is set to .MP3
3. Click the SAVE button
9. Click START
10. Wait a few seconds and then have a nice day enjoying your .MP3

VLC can convert MKV, MPEG, MP4, WAC,  AVI, ASF, WMV, DIVX, THORA, H264, MP3, WMA and more.