Audio File Size Calculator
Estimate uncompressed audio file size from sample rate, bit depth, channels, and length.
This is raw, uncompressed PCM — the size of a WAV or AIFF. Formats like MP3 or AAC squeeze this down a lot; lossless FLAC lands somewhere in between.
How it works
Uncompressed audio stores a number for every sample. Its size in bits is sample rate × bit depth × channels × seconds, and dividing by 8 turns that into bytes — the raw formula behind every WAV and AIFF file.
CD quality is 44,100 samples a second at 16 bits in stereo, which works out to about 10.1 MB per minute. Bump to 24-bit or 96 kHz and the file grows in direct proportion, because each factor multiplies the total.
Enter your settings and length and the tool gives you the size in megabytes, the data rate in kbps, and the exact byte count. It's uncompressed PCM, so lossy formats like MP3 will end up a fraction of this.
Frequently asked questions
How big is one minute of CD-quality audio?
About 10.1 MB. That's 44,100 × 16 × 2 × 60 ÷ 8 bytes, roughly 10.6 million bytes, which is a data rate of 1,411 kbps.
Why divide by 8?
Bit depth is measured in bits, but file sizes are in bytes, and there are 8 bits in a byte. Dividing the bit total by 8 converts the figure into bytes.
Does this apply to MP3 or AAC files?
No — those use compression, so they're much smaller. This formula gives the uncompressed PCM size you'd get in a WAV or AIFF; treat it as the ceiling before compression.