Consider the following scenario: your drone footage is in .mov format; your phone records in .mkv; the podcast episode you downloaded is an .ogg file and won't play in your car. Plus, somewhere in your email archive, there's a presentation video saved as a .wmv file that's too large to upload anywhere. Relatable?

Different devices and platforms use different media formats, so compatibility is still a daily frustration. Some formats won't work on certain devices. Others are uncompressed and eat up gigabytes of storage.

The solution is to convert media files to MP3 or MP4, both widely supported formats. If you're a Windows user, this guide will show you how to do it quickly and with minimal friction. But first - let's understand the root of the problem.

Understanding Codecs and Containers

Media files have two layers that determine compatibility: the container format (the file extension like .mp4, .mkv, or .avi) and the codec (the encoding method used for the actual audio and video streams inside). Think of the container as a .zip file and the codec as the data inside it. For example, an .mp4 file might contain H265 video (common on Apple devices but not universally supported) or H264 video (widely compatible).

Playback issues often stem from the codec rather than the container. The best way to address this is by converting media into MP3 files or MP4 containers with H264 video encoding and AAC audio encoding. These specs are compatible with the vast majority of devices, making the converted files work everywhere: your phone, car, TV, laptop, and any device you'll use in the future.

You can do the conversion with Advanced Paste - an open source tool for Windows users with many other useful functionalities.

Advanced Paste and PowerToys

Advanced Paste is a powerful clipboard enhancement tool that transforms how you work with copied content. It goes far beyond basic paste operations, offering intelligent clipboard transformations for text, images, files, and - as we'll explore in this guide - audio and video files.

We've covered Advanced Paste extensively in our previous guides: Part 1 explores automated clipboard conversions, Part 2 dives into AI-powered transformations like JSON to CSV conversion, and Part 3 demonstrates text manipulation and markdown generation.

Advanced Paste is part of PowerToys, Microsoft's open-source productivity suite for Windows power users. It includes utilities for window management, keyboard remapping, file organization, and much more - all designed to enhance productivity and streamline workflows. You can download and install PowerToys for free from the official GitHub repository or through the Microsoft Store.

Janea Systems and PowerToys

Janea Systems has been instrumental in developing PowerToys, contributing significant features and improvements to the suite.

I’ve had the privilege of interviewing Jaime Bernardo, a lead developer on the PowerToys team, about the ins and outs of the project. In Part 1 of my interview, Jaime discusses the philosophy behind PowerToys and the development process, while Part 2 explores specific features and technical challenges.

Available Media Conversions

Advanced Paste offers three media transformation options that handle the most common audiovisual conversion needs:

Audio to MP3 Transcoding

Convert audio files in any supported format (including WAV, FLAC, OGG, WMA, AAC, and many others) directly to the universally compatible MP3 format. This is perfect for reducing file sizes or ensuring compatibility across all your devices.

Audio Extraction from Video

Extract the audio track from any video file and save it as an MP3. This is ideal when you want to save a podcast, lecture, or music video as an audio-only file for easier listening on the go.

Video to MP4 Transcoding

Convert video files in various formats (such as AVI, MKV, MOV, WMV, FLV, and more) to the standard MP4 format, ensuring your videos play smoothly on any modern device and take up less storage space.

All three operations work seamlessly through the clipboard, making media conversion as simple as copy and paste.

Enable Advanced Paste and Media Transcoding

Before you can use Advanced Paste's media conversion features, you need to ensure the tool is enabled in PowerToys:

1. Open PowerToys Settings: Launch the PowerToys application from your Start menu or system tray.

2. Navigate to Advanced Paste: In the left sidebar, click on "Advanced Paste" to access its settings panel.

3. Enable the Feature: Toggle the switch at the top of the Advanced Paste settings page to "On" if it isn't already enabled (Figure 1).

Fig. 1: Advanced Paste is enabled.

4. Verify the Keyboard Shortcut: By default, Advanced Paste uses Win + Shift + V as its global shortcut. You can customize this if it conflicts with other applications (Figure 2).

Fig. 2: The keyboard shorcut is enabled. In this case, it is highlighted in red to indicate conflict with other application. You can click the pen icon to change the shortcut.

5. Verify Media Options Are Enabled: Scroll to the section listing available paste transformations and ensure that the following options are checked: “Transcode audio / video”, “Transcode to mp3”, and “Transcode to .mp4 (H.264/AAC)” (Figure 3).

Fig. 3: Transcoding is enabled.

As you can see in the screenshot, you can also set up individual shortcuts for specific operations, including for transcoding. Once set up, they will allow you to perform transcoding even faster.

Note on AI and Offline Use

Transcoding in Advanced Paste does not use the AI features that power text transformations. Instead, it leverages the Windows.Media.Transcoding API, a native Windows component that provides reliable, high-quality media conversion, leveraging local GPU whenever possible. This approach ensures fast processing without requiring cloud connectivity or AI model downloads.

Supported Codecs and Transcoding Quality

The Windows.Media.Transcoding API supports a comprehensive range of audio and video codecs. For a complete list of supported formats, you can refer to Microsoft's official documentation on supported codecs.

Advanced Paste preserves quality settings from the source file wherever possible, including video dimensions, audio bitrate, and container metadata such as title and album information.

The Advanced Paste Shortcuts

Advanced Paste comes with a global keyboard shortcut: Win + Shift + V. You can activate it anywhere on your system when you want to paste copied content. The shortcut works in File Explorer, a web browser, a document editor, and any other location that accepts pasting from clipboard.

Pressing the shortcut opens the Advanced Paste window, which lists available operations based on your clipboard content. For example, if you've copied a media file, you'll see the transcoding option (Figure 4).

Fig. 4: The Advanced Paste window, activated by pressing Shift+Win+V, adapts available options to the content of the clipboard. Here, we can see “Transcode to .mp3”, because the copied element is a multimedia file.

Transcoding or Extracting with Advanced Paste

The process for converting media files with Advanced Paste is the same whether you're transcoding video, transcoding audio, or extracting audio from video.

Follow these steps (illustrated in Figure 5 underneath):

1. Copy an audio or video file: Navigate to the source file in File Explorer, right-click it, and select "Copy" (or press Ctrl + C).
2. Navigate to the target location: Open the folder or application where you want to save the converted file. If it’s an application, make sure it accepts files as input – for example, it can be an email client or a browser window for uploading files.
3. Use the Advanced Paste shortcut:
   While in the target location, press Win + Shift + V to activate the Advanced Paste window and choose the desired conversion action from the menu;
   alternatively, you can use a custom single-operation shortcut if you've configured one beforehand. This compresses the entire process to a single step.

The converted file is saved where you activated the Advanced Paste window, with the same filename and a new extension (.mp3 or .mp4). The original source file remains unchanged in its original location.

Fig. 5: The process of transcoding or extracting with Advanced Paste.

Note: Once the conversion starts, a blue ring will indicate progress. This might come in handy for large files.

Troubleshooting Conversion Errors

Advanced Paste may display an error message when attempting to transcode a media file (Figure 6).

Fig. 6: The Advanced Paste window displays an error message.

This usually means one of two things:

Unsupported codec

Check the list of supported codecs in Microsoft's documentation to verify whether your source file's format is supported.

While the Windows.Media.Transcoding API supports a wide range of audio and video formats, some proprietary or uncommon codecs may not be compatible.

Corrupted source file

Ensure your source file’s integrity by attempting to play it in a media player before conversion.

How Advanced Paste Came to Be

Media conversion is a recurring friction point for users. Advanced Paste eliminates that friction in a couple of clicks, enabling conversion directly from the clipboard. No specialized software or technical knowledge necessary.

This approach is possible because Advanced Paste belongs to an open-source project where features are built based on real user feedback rather than arbitrary business decisions. The media transcoding functionality exists because users recognized a common need and championed building a solution.

Janea Systems contributed to PowerToys alongside other open-source projects like PyTorch (improving cross-platform stability) and JECQ (making vector search more efficient). In all of these cases, our mission was to make developer tools more efficient. When the tools themselves get out of the way, you can focus on the actual work.