Get the audio from a video
Sometimes the video is just the container and the audio is the actual asset — this endpoint strips the sound out of a video file and hands it back on its own, ready for a podcast feed, a transcription tool, or a dubbing pipeline. No re-encoding gymnastics, no manual export from an editor just to grab a track.
Run it online
Run this on our servers with your account. Free tools run in your browser; this one bills your KIT balance per the price above.
The everyday need behind it
A huge amount of audio content starts life recorded on video: an interview filmed on camera that only needs to become a podcast episode, a webinar recording headed for a transcript, a conference talk whose audio gets repurposed into a newsletter clip. In every one of those cases the video itself is dead weight — what's needed is the audio track, isolated and in a usable format, without opening an editor just to hit export.
How the request behaves
Post the video to POST /video/extract-audio and get a task_id in return while the job queues. The service demuxes the audio stream from the container, encodes it to a standard audio format, and makes the resulting file available once processing finishes — the video itself is never touched or altered, only read.
Why this is simpler than it sounds, and why it still matters
Technically, audio and video are separate streams multiplexed into one container file — a fact anyone who's used a command-line media tool already knows, since separating them is one flag away. The value of an API endpoint here isn't the operation itself; it's doing that extraction reliably, at scale, across whatever source format arrives, without someone maintaining a script or babysitting a local tool for every file that comes in. That reliability matters more once volume grows: a script that works fine on one test clip can quietly choke on a source with an unusual codec or an oddly muxed stream, and nobody notices until a batch job fails halfway through overnight.
Where it plugs into a larger flow
Audio extraction is almost always step one, not the destination: the output typically feeds a transcription or subtitle-generation step, a dubbing or voice-cloning pipeline, or a podcast publishing workflow that only ever wanted the sound. Because the job is asynchronous, a batch of recorded sessions can be submitted together and picked up as each finishes, which is the difference between a one-off manual export and a repeatable stage in an automated content pipeline.
Status, plainly stated
This endpoint is in its final deployment stage. The path, request shape and pricing described here are final; once it opens for traffic, any job that fails is retried automatically and, if it still fails, it is never billed.
What you can do with it
Video interviews turned into podcast episodes
A media team records interviews on camera for other purposes but publishes the audio separately as a podcast episode, extracting the track automatically instead of exporting it by hand each time.
Webinars feeding a transcription step
A company runs recorded webinars through this endpoint first to isolate the audio, then sends that audio into a transcription workflow instead of transcribing directly from the heavier video file.
Dubbing and localization pipelines
A localization team extracts the original audio from source video as the first step before translation and voice work, keeping the video file untouched until the new track is ready.
Archiving talks as audio-only content
A conference organizer converts recorded sessions into an audio archive, extracting just the sound so the library doesn't have to store or stream full video for people who only want to listen.
FAQ
What audio format does the extract audio from video API return?
It returns the isolated audio track from your video encoded as a standard audio file, ready to use directly or feed into another processing step.
Does it change or degrade my original video?
No, the video file is only read to pull the audio stream out; it is not modified, re-encoded or altered in the process.
Is there a free tier for this API?
There's no free tier — free tiers get abused and slow everyone down. Access runs on a prepaid ForHosting KIT balance: top up from $10.00 (it never expires) and each request is charged at its published price, so a call with no balance returns HTTP 402. No subscription, no tokens, no invented credits, and a failed task is never charged.
How long can the source video be?
Because the job runs asynchronously and returns a task_id immediately, video length doesn't block the request; you're notified via webhook or signed link once extraction finishes.
How do I retrieve the extracted audio?
Either through a signed webhook call when the job completes, or by downloading it from a signed link that stays valid for 24 hours.
Can I extract audio from many videos in one workflow?
Yes, each request is an independent async task with its own task_id, so submitting a batch of videos is just a matter of looping the call.
Is this useful before running a transcription or subtitle job?
Yes, extracting the audio first is a common lead-in step, though our subtitle-generation endpoint also accepts video directly if you don't need the standalone audio file for anything else.
Is the endpoint accepting requests already?
It's completing final deployment right now; the endpoint, price and behavior here are final and it will start accepting jobs shortly.
For developers — API access
Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.
API endpoint
Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, and soon from our app, email and Telegram.
Call it from your stack
curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/video/extract-audio \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"audio":"https://ejemplo.com/audio.mp3"}'const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/video/extract-audio", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
"Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"audio": "https://ejemplo.com/audio.mp3"
})
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();import os, requests
res = requests.post(
"https://api.kit.forhosting.com/video/extract-audio",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
json={
"audio": "https://ejemplo.com/audio.mp3"
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/video/extract-audio", false, stream_context_create([
"http" => [
"method" => "POST",
"header" => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
"content" => '{"audio":"https://ejemplo.com/audio.mp3"}',
],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"audio":"https://ejemplo.com/audio.mp3"}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/video/extract-audio", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)Example request
{
"audio": "https://ejemplo.com/audio.mp3"
}Example response
{
"task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
"type": "video.extract_audio",
"status": "queued",
"_links": {
"result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
}
}The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.
Pricing
Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.
Limits
max_mb | 500 |
max_minutes | 60 |
max_megapixels | 3.9 |
Errors
| HTTP | Code | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
401 | unauthorized | Missing or invalid API key. |
402 | insufficient_balance | Your balance doesn't cover the task price. |
404 | unknown_type | That task type doesn't exist. |
429 | rate_limited | Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling. |