Shotcut extracts audio through the same Export panel it uses for video — you pick an audio preset instead of a video one. There is no separate "export audio" command to hunt for.
MP3 is not a workaround here, it is one of the routes Shotcut itself suggests. Answering "Which Export preset should I use?", the official FAQ lists use cases, and one of them is exactly this job: "Extract the audio: Ogg Vorbis, FLAC (lossless with compression), or good old MP3".
This walkthrough follows the documented route, and flags the 2025 panel default that most often makes an older tutorial's screenshot disagree with your screen.
Before you start
Exporting is not saving. The user guide opens its export section with the distinction: "The Export panel (also File > Export Video...) is used to create a new video or audio file from your project because File > Save saves a project file." Saving your project produces no MP3.
Decide what you want the MP3 to cover. Shotcut's From dropdown is not limited to the timeline, and picking the wrong entry is the difference between one file and several.
Pick the format deliberately. The FAQ offers three for extraction and describes only one of them as lossless — "FLAC (lossless with compression)". If the file is going to a podcast host, a phone, or anyone else, MP3 is the one on that list people can play without thinking about it. If the audio is going back into another edit, take the FLAC route instead.
Step 1: Get the audio onto the timeline
Add the clip you want the audio from to the timeline. That alone sets your export source correctly: the guide describes the first From option as "Timeline: This is the default if you have added anything to the Timeline."
Step 2: Open the Export panel
Open it from File > Export Video..., as named in the guide. It is the same panel used for video — the preset is what makes the output audio-only.
Step 3: Set From to the range you actually want
This is the step most walkthroughs skip. The guide documents these sources, verbatim:
- "Source: You can export a single clip that has been trimmed and filtered in the Source player."
- "Current Playlist Bin: Exports the Playlist as a single, sequential file."
- "Each Playlist Bin Item: Exports a separate file for each item in the playlist or, optionally, the current bin if using playlist bins."
- "Marker...: Exports a range Marker, which is a marker with a duration."
Two traps live in that list. Each Playlist Bin Item gives you one file per item, not one merged file — useful if you want per-clip MP3s, surprising if you did not read the label. And the marker route only offers some of your markers: "Export > From lists all range markers (duration longer than 1 frame)." A plain single-frame marker will not appear there.
Step 4: Choose an MP3 preset
Pick the MP3 preset from the preset list in the Export panel, per the FAQ line quoted above.
You cannot skip this step for audio work. The guide notes that a preset is optional in general — "NOTE: It is not necessary to choose a preset! Shotcut comes with default values that creates a high quality H.264 MP4 file at a reasonable size and speed" — but those defaults produce a video file. Audio-only output comes from the preset.
Treat the preset as a starting point rather than a guarantee. The guide is blunt about what presets are not: "Export presets are not: Project templates Guaranteed-safe configurations Automatically compatible with all codecs or hardware encoders". It adds the assumption behind them: "Using presets assumes you understand the implications of the selected settings."
Step 5: Check Rate control before trusting an old screenshot
If you are following a tutorial and the audio settings look different from the video, this is usually why. Shotcut's release notes record, for Release 25.07.26: "Changed the default Export > Audio > Rate control to Average Bitrate for AAC, Opus, and MP3."
So on a current install, MP3 exports start from Average Bitrate as the rate control mode. A guide written before that release may show a different selection, and the fix is simply to set the panel the way you want rather than assume your copy is broken. The official pages we could find do not document what each rate control mode does in detail, and they give no bitrate figures for the MP3 preset — check the official documentation before quoting a number to anyone.
Step 6: Export File, then watch the Jobs panel
Click Export File. The guide describes what happens next: "It opens the standard save file dialog for your operating system where you must choose a folder and give it a name."
Then leave the application alone. The Quick Start table's instruction is one line: "Do not close Shotcut until the export finishes." The export runs as a background job, and the Jobs panel is where you find out whether it worked — a failure is marked "Failed (Red X): The task encountered an error. You can right-click these to view a log for troubleshooting."
Try it right here
Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.
If the project only exists so you can pull the audio out of one file, opening an editor at all is overhead. The tool above does the extraction in your browser — the file is read from disk, converted locally, and handed back, so nothing is uploaded. The same job in other shapes lives at extract audio from video and M4A to MP3; the full set is on the tools page.
Common mistakes
Expecting a lossless "copy the audio out" operation. Shotcut states the opposite in its first sentence on the topic:
"Shotcut can not "pass through" or copy codecs without re-encoding."
The nearest thing is Properties > menu > Extract sub-clip, and the guide flags its cost: "The extraction will round to the nearest codec keyframe - which could be more than a second a way from the selected in/out points."
Building the format by hand in Advanced. The guide attaches an unusual warning to that button: "by clicking Advanced you should understand that Shotcut expects you to be advanced and know what you are doing. There are simply too many combinations of settings and options that Shotcut's advanced export mode lets you create invalid combinations and does not protect you from yourself." The documented consequences of a bad combination include exports that "Result in silent audio or missing video" — so a silent MP3 usually points back at this step.
Dropping in a shared preset file and not restarting. The guide's instruction is explicit: "You must restart Shotcut after manually adding preset files in order for Shotcut to see them."
Blaming the MP3 for clicks at clip joins. Shotcut shipped filters for this in Release 23.07.29, described as addressing "an old problem where clicks and pops may be heard in export when switching between clips due to discontinuities in the audio stream." Note the placement rule in the same note: "Both of these new filters may ONLY be added to individual tracks–audio or video." Release 23.05.07 separately records "Less audio crackling in exports when audio source is not 48000 Hz sample rate."
Choosing Ogg Vorbis and expecting cover art. Release 26.6.25 records the current state plainly: "Fixed Export > Ogg Vorbis with Cover Art fails (no longer fails but our Ogg integration does not support cover art)." MP3 is the better pick if artwork matters.
FAQ
Does Shotcut export MP3 directly? Yes. The official FAQ names it among the presets it suggests for pulling audio out of a project: "Extract the audio: Ogg Vorbis, FLAC (lossless with compression), or good old MP3".
What bitrate does Shotcut's MP3 preset use? The official pages we could find do not publish a figure. What they do record is the rate control default: as of Release 25.07.26, Export > Audio > Rate control defaults to Average Bitrate for AAC, Opus, and MP3. Check the official documentation for the current preset values.
Why does my Export panel not match the tutorial I am following? Most often the audio rate control default, changed in Release 25.07.26. Set the control to what you want rather than trying to reproduce an old screenshot.
Can I export the audio of one clip instead of the whole timeline?
Yes — trim and filter it in the Source player, then set From to Source, documented as "You can export a single clip that has been trimmed and filtered in the Source player."
Can I add artist and title tags to the exported file?
The guide says "Certain formats such as MP4 and MP3 (and many others but not all) support embedded metadata attributes such as Artist and Title", set through Advanced > Other with keys such as meta.attr.artist.markup= and meta.attr.title.markup=. For an audio language tag it says to "set alang to an ISO 639 language code", giving alang=eng as the example.
My export failed — where do I start? With the Jobs panel log, then Shotcut's own ordered sequence for a stuck or failing export, which we walk through in Shotcut export failed. More step-by-step guides are in the how-to hub.
All quotations above are from the official Shotcut User Guide (June 2026), the shotcut.org FAQ, and the shotcut.org release notes, checked 16 September 2026. Release notes describe what changed in a given version — verify against the current documentation before relying on them.
