How to extract audio from videos on iOS?

By Enes Deniz, 6 July, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

You might also paraphrase this question as, "How to convert videos to audio on iOS without a computer or any other device?". I sometimes record my screen and then want to share these recordings with blind friends, but then face annoying size limit problems and often end up sending them links to storage/file sharing services instead. So all I am looking for is an app, preferably a free one, to convert these videos to audio, or extract the audio from them.

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Comments

By Brian Giles on Thursday, July 6, 2023 - 13:47

No need for a separate app. The shortcuts app that's part of iOS will do it for you. I made a shortcut that does exactly this. It shows up as an option in the share sheet for a video you record and lets you save the audio from the video as an AAC file to the files app.

Get it here

By Dominic on Thursday, July 6, 2023 - 15:18

Brian, that’s the message I get when I try and load your shortcut
Does anybody know how I can fix this

By Brian Giles on Thursday, July 6, 2023 - 17:11

Hmmmm. worked for me when I clicked on the link, as well as when I googled and tried to add a shortcut from a link that someone else made.

Have you turned on "allow untrusted shortcuts" in settings?

Open the shortcuts app and run one.
Then if you go to settings>shortcuts the option should show up.

By TheBlindGuy07 on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 17:36

I can execute it fine but can't find the converted file in any sections of the files app or recents. Any help would be appreciated.

By onetrickpony on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 18:01

If the downloaded shortcut does not work, you can create your own in the shortcuts app, which comes with iOS. You need to create a shortcut that executes three steps:
1. takes from "Share Sheet" Media and Images as an input
2. Encode Shortcut Input "Audio only", Format M4A, as a processing step, that converts what comes from the shared input
3. step: "Save as" with "Ask Where To Save"
It's a bit tricky to get it working, but finally it does.

By Brooke on Monday, December 1, 2025 - 11:55

It seems like it's running, but the converted file doesn't appear anywhere. I have no idea how to create a shortcut like this to try and set up another one. When I run it, it does whatever it's doing so quickly that I can't get VO to really read anything.

By onetrickpony on Monday, December 1, 2025 - 14:52

mistakes I had made:

- I did not select "Ask Where To Save" in the "Save As" step configuration
- I did not choose Format M4A in the Encode step configuration

- I tried to run it from shortcuts and not from the video file itself (with share)
- I did not select or create a directory when asked where to save

Btw. probably you can edit the downloaded shortcut in the Shortcuts app.
I

By TheBlindGuy07 on Monday, December 1, 2025 - 15:19

And with the default shortcut downloaded as it is I can't find the saved file.

By onetrickpony on Monday, December 1, 2025 - 15:32

Did it ask you where to save?
You need to select "Ask Where To Save" in the "Save As" step configuration.

Probably your shortcut link is outdated or incompatible. Now what you can do is, create your own shortcut, or maybe you can edit the one you downloaded.
Open your Shortcuts App. There you can edit or create shortcuts.

By Brooke on Monday, December 1, 2025 - 20:14

The shortcut I'm trying to use is the one mentioned in this specific post, and I wasn't prompted with a question on where to save the file. I have no clue how to set up an elaborate shortcut on my own, I've only managed to do very basic ones because the shortcut app seems beyond confusing.

By Brooke on Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 01:09

I got that one to work, thank you so much!