Convert audio to MP3

How to Convert to MP3

1. 1

   Add your audio files

   Any of a dozen formats, up to 200 MB each and twenty at a time. The format is read from the file itself, not from its name.

2. 2

   Choose a bitrate or switch to variable

   192 kbps suits almost everything. Variable bitrate spends bits where the music needs them and saves a little size.

3. 3

   Click Convert and download

   Tags travel with the file by default, and cover art survives where the source had one.

This page exists so you do not have to know your format

There are dedicated pages here for WAV, FLAC, M4A, OGG, AAC, Opus and WMA, and each of them is tuned for its source. This one takes all of them. That matters more often than it sounds: a file downloaded from a messenger is frequently called something ending in .mp3 while actually containing Opus, and a recording pulled off a camera can be an M4A with a video extension. The format here is decided by reading the first bytes of the file, never by trusting its name, so a mislabelled file lands on the right decoder anyway instead of failing with a confusing error.

Constant or variable bitrate

Constant bitrate spends the same number of bits on every second, whether that second is a drum solo or silence. It is predictable, every player handles it, and it is the safe choice when the file is going into old hardware or a car stereo. Variable bitrate lets the encoder spend more on complicated passages and less on simple ones, which typically saves ten to twenty per cent of the size at the same perceived quality. The trade is that some very old players seek badly through VBR files. This page writes a Xing header into every file, which tells players the real length and makes seeking work properly; without it, a VBR MP3 shows the wrong duration and jumps to the wrong place when you drag the slider.

What each bitrate is for

320 kbps is the ceiling the format allows and the right choice when the source is lossless and you would rather not think about it again. 192 kbps is where most listeners stop hearing a difference on ordinary equipment, and it is the default here for that reason. 128 kbps was the internet standard for a decade and still sounds acceptable through phone speakers. 96 and 64 kbps exist for speech: an interview, a lecture or a voice memo carries no high frequencies worth protecting, and a two-hour recording at 64 kbps fits in under sixty megabytes. Converting from an already-compressed source does not benefit from a higher bitrate than the original. The information is gone, and asking for 320 kbps just stores the same sound in a bigger file.

Tags and cover art

Artist, title, album and the rest are copied across by default, written as ID3v2.3, which is the version Windows Explorer, iTunes and virtually every car stereo read without complaint. Embedded cover art is carried over as-is where the source container had one: FLAC and M4A commonly do, WAV and raw AAC never do. Turning tags off writes a completely clean file, which is occasionally what you want when the metadata came from somewhere you would rather not advertise.

Frequently asked questions

Guides

• MP3 vs WAV vs FLAC: Which One to Send, and Which to KeepMP3, WAV and FLAC solve three different problems, and picking the wrong one either wastes bandwidth or throws away quality for good.