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WAV

wav icon

WAVe PCM Sound, standard Windows sound format

File type: Mobile ringtone file, Audio and sound file

Files with wav extension are audio files in the common PCM audio - Wave Form Audio format.

What is wav file?

File type category:
Mobile ringtone file
Audio and sound file

Date updated: July 13, 2025

File extension wav is traditionally used for one of the most common audio files - WAV.

Windows uses the Wave Form Audio (WAV) file format to store sounds as waveforms. One minute of Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)-encoded sound can occupy as little as 644 kilobytes (KB) or as much as 27 megabytes (MB) of storage.

This size of the storage space depends on the sampling frequency, the type of sound (mono or stereo), and the number of bits that are used for the sample.

Similar to the AVI and ASF format, WAV is only a file container. Audio content that is compressed with a wide variety of codecs and that is stored in a wav file can be played back in Windows Media Player if the appropriate codecs are installed on the computer.

The most common audio codecs that are used in wav files include Microsoft Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (MS ADPCM) and uncompressed Pulse Code Modulation (PCM).

MIME types:
application/x-wav
audio/wav
audio/x-wav

How to open wav file?

WAV format is supported by all current media players.

How to convert wav file?

WAV format is supported by all modern audio converters.

Suggested software to open wav file:

Associated software actions with the wav file

Software applications that can open wav files:

Software applications that can edit wav files:

Software capable of saving wav files:

Software apps that create wav files:

Apple macOS / Mac OS X

Software apps that record to wav files:

Microsoft Windows

Apple macOS / Mac OS X

Software apps that burn wav files to disc:

Software applications that handle other tasks involving wav files:

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