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I switched over to Windows 7 a month or two ago and was dismayed to find out that you can no longer view things like the sample rate and channel info (i.e. mono/stereo) in the explorer. In Windows XP, these were flags you could enable in the File Options menu.

If anyone knows of any good third-party apps that restore this functionality, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

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  • Can you see it in the information bar at the bottom of the explorer window? You can make it bigger to show more file details.
    – endolith
    Commented Aug 10, 2010 at 1:41
  • you can be quite specific in the search box and the fields seem intuitive. For example: channels:6 channels:>2
    – user9525
    Commented Jul 7, 2014 at 9:51

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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You can do this workaround in Windows 7 if you switch your folder view to 'details', right click on the bar at the top of the file viewer & display the bit rate of the files. Then you need to memorise the bit rates of your commonly used sampling frequency / bit depth combinations ;)

  • 512kbps = 32kHz 16 bit Mono
  • 705kbps = 44kHz 16 bit Mono
  • 1024kbps = 32kHz 16 bit Stereo
  • 1058kbps = 44kHz 24bit Mono
  • 1152kbps = 48kHz 24 bit Mono
  • 1411kbps = 44kHz 16 bit Stereo
  • 2116kbps = 44kHz 24bit Stereo
  • 2304kbps = 48kHz 24 bit Stereo

If you are using lots of non standard sampling frequencies for game sound effects then this might not be a realistic solution

edit

There's actually a formula to calculate the bitrate:

bitrate (kbps) = sampling rate (kHz) * bit depth (bit) * num of channels (mono/stereo)

  • 512kbps = 32kHz * 16bit * 1 channel
  • 1411kbps = 44kHz * 16 bit * 2 channels (CD standard)
  • 2116kbps = 48kHz * 24bit * 2 channels
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  • 4608 kbps = 96 kHz 24 bit Stereo
    – Elaskanator
    Commented Apr 29, 2020 at 2:44
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You could also download Wave Agent from http://sounddevices.com. It's free, and gives you access to the file's metadata as well. Ryan is correct about iTunes, but quicktime will let you look at it as well. Go to the "Window" column in the menu and open the "movie inspector".

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  • Yeah I'd check Wave Agent - I know nothing about third party programs from Windows.
    – Utopia
    Commented Aug 10, 2010 at 0:43
  • Thanks for the comments. I work a lot with low level tools (I'm in game development) so I spend a lot of time doing file management in Windows. I'm trying to avoid having to open up another app just to see the sample rate of a file if at all possible.
    – espgaluda
    Commented Aug 10, 2010 at 1:03
  • Doesn't Windows Media Player have an option to be able to see the sample-rate in the browser? I don't think they would get rid of that feature. Did you ask Microsoft already?
    – Utopia
    Commented Aug 10, 2010 at 5:13
  • Believe it or not, MS actually removed the feature back in Vista. You would figure a 3rd party solution would have come along by now, but I haven't seen any.
    – espgaluda
    Commented Aug 12, 2010 at 21:33
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This is an old one, but for whom I might help with this hint:

You might as well check out Media Info from mediaarea.net

This tool lets you either enable a context menu entry to view extensive media-file properties in a separate window (not only audio, but also all kinds of video), or it lets you enable an explorer tooltip with basic information (sample rate included).

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To follow up on @Haydn Payne's answer, there's actually a formula to calculate the bitrate:

bitrate (kbps) = sampling rate (kHz) * bit depth (bit) * num of channels (mono/stereo)

  • 512kbps = 32kHz * 16bit * 1 (for mono)
  • 2116kbps = 48kHz * 24bit * 2 (for stereo)

Admittedly, this is just a way to check that a bitrate is correct for known sampling rate and bit depths. For unknown sampling rates/bit depths, I use my favorite free audio player MPC-BE (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/), which shows this information for a playing audio file by selecting File -> Properties and scrolling the bottom window to the right (see below).

Screenshot of MPC-BE displaying audio properties

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  • Wrt @xhamyd's answer: I tried MPC-BE today on Win10 64b, worked perfect on getting complete audio Properties on my FLAC files. Plus it's available on FileHippo.com, too.
    – Steve
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 21:29

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