MKVCleaver 0.8.0.2

You drop in MKV files, you tick the streams you want, and it pulls them out as standalone files.

That is the entire job, and it does it without re-encoding, without quality loss, and without the menu sprawl of larger video toolkits.

The application is a graphical front-end for mkvextract, the command-line extractor that ships inside MKVToolNix.

MKVToolNix already covers extraction in its own GUI, but MKVCleaver strips the workflow down to a single screen optimised for batch jobs - which is why people who routinely process dozens of episodes or rips in one go still keep it installed.

Where MKVCleaver fits in the workflow

Most MKV files arriving on a Windows PC come from one of three places: disc rips made with MakeMKV, screen captures from OBS Studio, or downloaded content.

Before extracting anything, it pays to inspect what is actually inside the container. MediaInfo lists every video stream, audio language, subtitle format, and chapter marker so you know exactly which track indexes to tick in MKVCleaver.

Users on Windows 10/11 who prefer a modernised dark-mode interface can use BetterMediaInfo instead - it runs the same MediaInfoLib engine underneath.

Once you have the track list, MKVCleaver handles the extraction stage:

• Video tracks come out as raw H.264, H.265, AV1, VP9, or whatever codec the source used. These are typically passed straight to a re-muxer or encoder.
• Audio tracks come out as AC3, DTS, AAC, FLAC, or Opus depending on the source.
  
  If you only need a portable MP3 or M4A copy of an extracted FLAC track, the online audio converter on convertico.com handles single-file jobs without installing anything; for batch transcoding, FFmpeg is the standard tool.
• Subtitle tracks come out as SRT, ASS, PGS, or VobSub files. These almost always need cleanup, retiming, or format conversion - which is what Subtitle Edit is built for. For very short jobs or quick OCR-style cleanup, Subtitle Workshop Classic is still a workable option.
• Chapter markers are written to a separate XML file that can be re-inserted later by MKVToolNix.

Key features

Batch extraction: queue up an entire folder of MKV episodes and pull the same track indexes from every file in a single pass. This is the feature that genuinely differentiates MKVCleaver from the mkvextract GUI inside MKVToolNix.

Selective stream picking: the file tree lists every track per file with codec, language, and default-flag information so you do not extract anything you do not need.

Lossless by design: no transcoding ever happens. The tracks land on disk byte-for-byte identical to how they were stored inside the MKV.

Portable footprint: the installer is under 4 MB and requires the MKVToolNix executables to be present on the system. Point MKVCleaver at the MKVToolNix install folder once and it works.

Free and ad-free: developed by Sapib as freeware with no bundled offers.

How it works in practice

Install MKVToolNix first, then install MKVCleaver and link it to the MKVToolNix folder on first launch. Drag your MKV files into the file list, tick the audio, subtitle, video, or chapter tracks you want from each one, choose an output folder, and click Extract.

For a batch of TV episodes that all share the same track layout, this typically takes a few seconds per file because no encoding occurs - the data is simply copied out of the container.

After extraction, the workflow usually continues elsewhere: subtitles into Subtitle Edit, audio into a converter, video into an encoder, and the final assembly back into a fresh MKV with MKVToolNix.

For playback verification of the original or edited files, MPC-HC and VLC Media Player both handle MKV natively without extra codecs.

When to use MKVCleaver and when not to

Use MKVCleaver when you have many MKV files and need the same tracks pulled from all of them - subtitle ripping for translation, audio extraction for music videos, isolating a single language track from a multi-audio rip. It is purpose-built for that pattern.

If you only have one MKV and need to do everything at once - merge, split, edit chapters, change track flags - the MKVToolNix GUI is the better choice because it covers the full container-editing surface.

If you are looking to actually convert an extracted track to a different format rather than just demux it, that is a job for FFmpeg or a friendly GUI converter.

MKVCleaver is small, fast, free, and does its single job well. Download MKVCleaver and slot it into your MKV workflow.