MOV to AIFF Converter

MOV to AIFF — Extract the Audio to a Lossless Apple Container

This tool pulls the audio track out of a MOV (QuickTime) video and saves it as AIFF — Apple's uncompressed PCM format, the macOS counterpart to WAV. The video is discarded; only the sound is kept. AIFF is the natural target when the audio is headed into Logic Pro, GarageBand, or a Final Cut sound workflow, but there's one honest caveat below: most MOV audio is AAC, so you get a lossless container, not lossless audio.

AIFF vs WAV — Which Lossless Container Should You Extract To?

Both are uncompressed PCM, so at the same sample rate and bit depth the audio inside is bit-for-bit identical. The choice is about ecosystem and metadata, not sound.

When to Pick AIFF

• Your audio is going into Logic Pro, GarageBand, or Final Cut Pro — AIFF is the native Apple uncompressed format and carries its metadata cleanly.
• You're working entirely on macOS or iOS and want tags (track name, author) to survive round-trips between Apple apps.
• A collaborator or delivery spec explicitly asks for AIFF.

When to Pick WAV Instead

• The file has to play or import anywhere — Windows DAWs, Android, car stereos, DJ controllers, and web browsers all handle WAV more reliably than AIFF.
• You don't care about metadata and just want the most universally accepted uncompressed container. Extract to WAV instead — the audio quality is identical.

How to Convert MOV to AIFF

1. Upload Your MOV File: Drag and drop the video onto the page or click "+ Add Files". You can queue several MOV files and convert them with the same settings.
2. Set Audio Sample Rate: Leave it on "Original" to keep the MOV's native rate (usually 44.1 or 48 kHz), or pick a rate explicitly if your DAW project runs at a fixed sample rate.
3. Set Audio Channel (and Trim if needed): Keep "Original" to preserve stereo, or force Mono. Use the Trim control to export only a portion of the track instead of the whole file.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" to get your AIFF. No sign-up, no watermark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does converting AAC audio from a MOV to AIFF restore lossless quality?

No, and this is the most important thing to understand. Most MOV files store their audio as AAC, a lossy codec — iPhone recordings, for example, typically use AAC at 128-256 kbps. Decoding that AAC to AIFF gives you a lossless container, but it cannot rebuild detail the AAC encoder already threw away. The result stops any further loss and is convenient for an Apple audio workflow; it does not sound better than the AAC source, and it will be several times larger.

Is AIFF the same quality as WAV?

Yes. Both store uncompressed linear PCM, so at the same sample rate and bit depth the samples are identical — there is no audible or measurable difference. The real differences are the chunk structure (AIFF uses Apple's IFF layout, WAV uses Microsoft's RIFF), byte order, and metadata handling, not sound.

How large will the AIFF file be?

Roughly 10 MB per minute for CD-quality stereo (44.1 kHz, 16-bit), per the AIFF specification. A 24-bit / 48 kHz studio track is larger still. Because AIFF is uncompressed, file size scales directly with sample rate, bit depth, channel count, and duration — expect AIFF to be many times bigger than the original AAC track inside the MOV.

Which sample rate and bit depth should I extract at?

Match your destination project. Leave Audio Sample Rate on "Original" to carry over whatever the MOV used (commonly 44.1 kHz for general video, 48 kHz for footage from cameras). Up-sampling to a higher rate than the source adds file size without adding real detail, so there's rarely a reason to raise it above the original.

What applications open AIFF files?

AIFF is native to macOS and iOS — QuickTime Player, Music, Logic Pro, GarageBand, and Final Cut Pro all open it directly. On Windows and Android support is patchier; many media players and browsers handle AIFF poorly. If you need broad playback, WAV is the safer container, or convert the AIFF down to MP3 for sharing.

Can AIFF carry metadata like track name and author?

Yes. AIFF supports native metadata chunks for fields such as name, author, and annotation, and Apple apps read and write them cleanly. This is one of AIFF's advantages over WAV, where INFO/ID3 tags are inconsistently supported and frequently stripped by audio software.

Will the extracted AIFF stay in sync if I drop it back into a video edit?

Yes — extraction copies the audio samples without resampling when you keep the sample rate on "Original", so the track length and timing match the source MOV exactly. If you change the sample rate during conversion, keep your editing project at that same rate to avoid drift.

How are my files handled, and how long are they kept?

Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public. In our testing, a one-minute stereo MOV with 48 kHz AAC audio extracted to a roughly 11 MB AIFF, in line with the ~10 MB-per-minute figure for uncompressed CD-quality stereo.