WAV Compressor
Downmix or resample a WAV to cut its (large, uncompressed) file size.
Drop files, or click to browse
WAV, WAV, and other audio files welcome
Frequently asked questions
What bitrate should I pick?+
128 kbps is a good balance for speech and casual listening; 192–320 kbps preserves more detail for music.
Is my file uploaded to a server?+
No — compression runs locally using your browser's own built-in media codecs, in your browser tab.
Is there a maximum file size?+
There's no fixed file-size limit since nothing is uploaded to a server. Processing time scales with the track's length rather than a hard cutoff.
How do I compress a WAV?+
Drop your WAV into the box above and pick a bitrate — a smaller file is ready to download as soon as encoding finishes.
About WAV
What is WAV?
WAV stores audio with no compression at all, which is why it's the standard format in recording studios and audio editing software.
Full WAV format guide →Full-size WAV exports are often much larger than they need to be for how they're actually used. Compression finds a smaller file size that still looks (or sounds) right for the screen, feed, or inbox it's headed to.
How it works
- 1
Drop your file in
Drag your audio onto the box above, or click it to browse — there's no account to create and no upload to wait on.
- 2
Adjust the slider
Drag the quality slider and watch the estimated file size update in real time.
- 3
Download the result
Your browser processes everything locally and hands you a download link the moment it's done — nothing was ever sent to a server.
Is it private?
Everything happens locally, inside this browser tab. Your audio is read from disk, processed with WebAssembly running on your own device, and handed back to you as a download — it's never transmitted anywhere, so there's nothing to intercept and nothing stored on a server.
Common use cases
- Recording and mixing
- Archiving a master before any lossy export
- Prepping a podcast episode for a hosting platform
- Fitting a voice memo under a messaging app's size limit
Supported formats
This is one of many pairings the audio toolkit handles. In total it covers:
Other compressors
Format details
About WAV files+
WAV stores audio with no compression at all, which is why it's the standard format in recording studios and audio editing software.
WAV (Waveform Audio File Format) was created jointly by Microsoft and IBM in the early 1990s as a simple container for raw, uncompressed audio samples. Storing audio with no compression means there's never any generation loss from repeated saving and no decoding overhead when a program reads it, both of which matter enormously in a studio environment where a track might be opened, edited, and re-saved dozens of times before it's finished. The obvious tradeoff is size — a few minutes of CD-quality stereo audio can easily run to tens of megabytes — so WAV is rarely the format anyone actually distributes a finished track in.
How to open a WAV file
Opens readily in Any media player, Any web browser. For real editing, use Audacity (free), Pro Tools, Adobe Audition.
Good for
- lossless, full-fidelity audio
- no decoding overhead, ideal for editing
Watch out for
- very large files — roughly 10MB per minute of CD-quality stereo audio
Need another format? Try the full Audio Compressor, or explore all audio tools.