How to remove vocals from a song on iPhone

What you need

A video with the song in it: something you filmed, a screen recording, or any video saved in Photos or Files, up to 500MB. An iPhone with a recent version of iOS, and Safari. That's it.

The first time you split a song, your phone downloads the separation engine once (about 172MB) and keeps it for next time, so do the first one on Wi-Fi.

Remove the vocals, step by step

1. 1Open extractune.com/remove-vocals in Safari and tap Remove the vocals.
2. 2Tap the box and pick the video from your Photo Library or Files.
3. 3Drag the trim handles to the part with the song, if the video is longer than the song.
4. 4Tap Extract audio.
5. 5Tap Split audio. The first time, it asks before downloading the engine.
6. 6When the split lands, Instrumental is already picked. Tap play to check it.
7. 7Tap the download button. The file is saved to the Files app, in Downloads.

How long it takes

The split runs on your iPhone itself. On recent versions of iOS, Safari uses the graphics chip and splits up to 5 minutes of audio at a time; where it can't, the split runs on the processor, up to 2 minutes, and takes longer. A notice tells you the estimate before a long split starts, and you can listen to the finished part while the rest is still splitting.

Keep Safari open while it works: the screen stays on for you, but switching away for long can pause it.

Getting a cleaner instrumental

Start from the best copy you have. A clean recording separates better than a video filmed off a speaker in a noisy room.

Expect faint traces of the voice where it's very loud or drenched in reverb. That's true of every vocal remover; listen before you download.

Want more control? Open Mix it yourself to switch the voice, drums, bass and everything else on and off one by one, or download all four parts.

If something doesn't work

The video won't open: videos kept only in iCloud have to download to the iPhone first, which Photos does when you pick them; wait for it to finish. A video that plays in Photos but won't open here may use a format Safari can't read, so try re-saving or re-recording it.

You can't find the download: tap the downloads arrow in Safari's address bar, or open the Files app and look in Downloads.

The split stopped: Safari may pause a page you've left for a while. Come back and tap Split audio again; finished parts of a long split are kept, so it picks up where it stopped.

More than an instrumental

The same split gives you the acapella (just the voice), a drumless or bassless practice track, or the drums alone: they're one tap each above the player.

Is it private?

Yes. The video, the audio and the split all stay on your iPhone: nothing is uploaded to remove the vocals. The only feature that sends audio anywhere is Get the words, and only when you tap it.