How to open .WAV files (Waveform audio) on Android, Windows and Linux

WAV files arrive from all sorts of places: an interview recorded on a handheld recorder, a voicemail forwarded by email, a pack of drum samples, a track bounced from a music app. They’re often large, and on a phone it isn’t always obvious what should open them.

A WAV is the simplest kind of audio file there is, and most players handle the common ones. Folders plays WAV files for free on Android, Windows and Linux: tap the file and listen.

What is a .WAV file?

WAV, short for Waveform Audio File Format, was created by Microsoft and IBM in 1991. It uses RIFF, a structure of labelled chunks: a fmt chunk describes the audio, a data chunk holds it, and other chunks can add extras.

Most WAV files contain uncompressed PCM audio, the raw samples exactly as recorded. That makes them perfect for editing and archiving, but big:

Quality	Typical use	Size per minute
16-bit, 44.1 kHz, stereo	CD quality, music	About 10 MB
24-bit, 48 kHz, stereo	Video sound, field recorders	About 17 MB
32-bit float, 48 kHz, stereo	Modern recorders, music production	About 23 MB
8-bit µ-law, 8 kHz, mono	Telephone and voicemail	Under 1 MB

A few variations are worth knowing. Broadcast Wave (BWF) files are still .wav, but add a chunk with a description and timecode; many field recorders use it. A WAV can also hold compressed audio, such as the µ-law or ADPCM used by phone systems, which some players don’t support. And because the format stores sizes in 32 bits, a plain WAV can’t go past 4 GB; recorders either split long takes into several files or switch to an extended version called RF64.

How to open a .WAV file with Folders

On Android

1. Get Folders from the download page, install it and give it access to your files.
2. Find the WAV: Downloads for email attachments, or the folder you copied from your recorder. Search by name if you’re not sure.
3. Tap it. Folders’ audio player opens and starts playing.
4. From email or a messaging app, choose Open with → Folders.

On Windows and Linux

1. Install Folders.
2. Browse to the WAV in Folders and double-click it.
3. On Windows you can also right-click the file in File Explorer and choose Open with → Folders.

What you can do with it in Folders

• Listen and scrub. The audio player has play and pause, a seek bar to jump anywhere, and buttons to go back or forward 10 seconds. That’s useful for finding a quote in a long interview or replaying an unclear word.
• Play a whole collection. Music player in the Toolbox gathers the audio on your device into a single queue.
• Organise recordings from the file browser: rename takes, move them into folders, share them, or zip a batch.

Folders isn’t an audio editor. It doesn’t show a waveform, cut, normalise or convert WAV files. Also note that zipping won’t shrink WAV audio much; FLAC is the way to make it smaller without losing anything.

Other ways to open .WAV files

• Windows’ Media Player, or the music app on your phone, for everyday playback.
• Audacity: free on Windows and Linux; edit, clean up and convert WAV to FLAC or MP3.
• VLC: free on every system, and copes with unusual compressed WAV files.
• Ocenaudio: a free, simpler audio editor for Windows and Linux.

Problems opening a .WAV file?

• A recording shows 0:00 or won’t open. If the recorder’s battery died or the card was pulled mid-recording, the header’s size fields were never filled in. The audio is usually still there. In Audacity, use File → Import → Raw Data, choose the format the recorder uses (for example 24-bit PCM, 48 kHz, stereo), and save it again.
• It won’t play in one app but plays in another. The WAV probably holds compressed audio (ADPCM, µ-law, GSM) or 32-bit float samples that the first app doesn’t support. Try VLC, or convert it to standard 16-bit PCM in Audacity.
• A very long recording won’t open. Files over 4 GB are usually RF64, which older software doesn’t read. Use a recent version of Audacity or VLC.
• It’s silent or very quiet. Some 32-bit float recordings are captured at a low level on purpose, to be raised later. Normalise it in an editor.

Questions people ask

Can I open WAV files on Android? Yes. Android plays standard WAV files, and Folders opens them from any folder with a tap.

WAV vs MP3: which should I use? Use WAV for recording, editing and archiving, where every detail matters. Use MP3 (or AAC) for sharing and listening on the go, at a fraction of the size. See how to open MP3 files.

How do I make a WAV file smaller? Convert it to FLAC to halve the size or so with no loss, or to MP3 for a much smaller file. Audacity and ffmpeg both do it for free. Folders doesn’t convert audio.

What’s the difference between WAV and AIFF? They’re the same idea from different companies: WAV from Microsoft and IBM, AIFF from Apple. Both usually hold uncompressed PCM. See how to open AIFF files.

Want lossless files that take less space? Read how to open FLAC files, or browse all 382 file types Folders opens.