.wav files
.wav file
Waveform Audio File
Uncompressed audio — perfect quality, very large files, universal support.
What opens a .wav file
- Windows
- Media Player (built in), VLC, Audacity
- macOS
- Music (built in), QuickTime Player (built in), Audacity
- Linux
- Rhythmbox / Music (built in), VLC, Audacity
- In a browser
- Any web browser
What a .wav file is
WAV is Microsoft and IBM's 1991 container, normally holding raw PCM samples with no compression at all. That makes it the standard working format for recording, editing and mastering, at roughly 10 MB per minute for CD-quality stereo. The classic WAV header caps a file at 4 GB, which is why long recordings sometimes appear truncated in older software.
Converting it
A .wav file is commonly converted to .mp3, .flac, .m4a, .ogg or .aiff. It is a binary format, so a text editor will show unreadable characters rather than its contents.
Details
- Extension
- .wav
- Full name
- Waveform Audio File
- Category
- Audio
- MIME type
- audio/wav
- Created by
- Microsoft / IBM
- Format
- Binary
Common questions
- How do I open a .wav file?
- On Windows use Media Player (built in); on macOS use Music (built in); on Linux use Rhythmbox / Music (built in). Uncompressed audio — perfect quality, very large files, universal support.
- What is a .wav file?
- Waveform Audio File. WAV is Microsoft and IBM's 1991 container, normally holding raw PCM samples with no compression at all. That makes it the standard working format for recording, editing and mastering, at roughly 10 MB per minute for CD-quality stereo.
- Can I convert a .wav file?
- Yes. It is usually converted to .mp3, .flac, .m4a, .ogg or .aiff, either by exporting from one of the programs listed above or with a format converter.
Related pages
- .mp3 — MPEG-1 Audio Layer III The lossy audio format that made digital music portable, and still plays on ever
- .m4a — MPEG-4 Audio Audio in an MP4 container — what iTunes, Voice Memos and most modern recorders p
- .flac — Free Lossless Audio Codec Compressed audio that throws nothing away — about half the size of WAV, bit-for-
- .aac — Advanced Audio Coding The successor to MP3 — better sound per byte, used by YouTube, Apple and broadca
- .ogg — Ogg Vorbis Audio The open, patent-free audio format used by Spotify, Wikipedia and countless game
- .opus — Opus Audio The modern low-latency codec behind WhatsApp voice notes, Discord and web calls.
- .mid — MIDI Sequence Not audio at all — a list of notes and instructions for a synthesiser to perform
- .m3u — Media Playlist A plain-text list of tracks or stream URLs — it holds no audio itself.
- .wma — Windows Media Audio Microsoft's music format from the Windows XP years, now legacy.
- .aiff — Audio Interchange File Format Apple's uncompressed audio format — the Mac equivalent of WAV.
- .m4b — MPEG-4 Audiobook An audiobook file that remembers your place and supports chapters.
- .amr — Adaptive Multi-Rate Audio The narrow-band speech codec behind old phone voice recordings and MMS messages.
Sources
- Media Types Registry — IANA
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place