Click here to analyse any file

HomeFormats.WAVFull

What is a .WAV file?

WAV is an uncompressed, lossless audio format common in recording and editing.

Did you know
  • WAV was created jointly by Microsoft and IBM in 1991.
  • WAV is a flavour of Microsoft’s RIFF container, storing its data in little-endian chunks each tagged with a four-letter code.
  • Because the header records length in a 32-bit field, a standard WAV file cannot exceed roughly four gibibytes.
  • On the web a .WAV file is served with the MIME type audio/wav.
  • Analyser spots a .WAV file by its signature bytes 52 49 46 46 - the "RIFF" container tag.
What Analyser shows you
Inspect the waveform, spectrogram, codec, bitrate, channels, and tags of MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, OGG, and Opus audio.
Open a .WAV file
Drag a .WAV file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It opens entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.
Related formats
.MP3 · .M4A · .M4B · .AAC · .FLAC · .OGG · .OPUS · .AIFF · .WMA · .AMR · .AC3 · .DTS · .MKA. See all supported file types.