M4A to MP3 converter
Turn an M4A, such as a voice memo, into an MP3 that plays anywhere.
Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Drop an audio file
M4A, WAV, MP3, FLAC, Ogg or any audio your browser can play. It stays on your computer.
Runs on Mediabunny (MPL-2.0). MP3 encoding uses the LAME MP3 encoder (LGPL). OGG encoding uses libvorbis (BSD).
More about this tool
- 1
Add the M4A
Drop the file or choose it.
- 2
Pick a bitrate
192 kbps suits music, 128 kbps is plenty for speech. Choose 320 to keep the most detail.
- 3
Convert and download
Play the MP3 to check it, then download it.
M4A is an MPEG-4 file holding only audio, usually AAC. iPhone voice memos and music from Apple's apps are saved this way. Most players open it, but some older devices, editors and upload forms only take MP3.
The tool decodes the AAC and encodes it to MP3 with the LAME encoder, in your browser.
AAC and MP3 both drop detail to save space, so each conversion loses a little. Pick a bitrate at least as high as the M4A's to keep that loss small: 192 kbps for most music, 320 kbps for the best copy.
Speech holds up at 128 kbps, which keeps a long recording small. The hint under the bitrate shows the size per minute.
The same conversion on the command line, at 192 kbps:
- ffmpeg -i memo.m4a -codec:a libmp3lame -b:a 192k memo.mp3
Sources
Questions
No. The M4A is decoded and the MP3 is written in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
192 kbps for music, 128 kbps for voice memos and podcasts, 320 kbps when you want the closest copy of the original.
An M4A can hold Apple Lossless (ALAC) instead of AAC, which browsers can't decode. Use the ffmpeg command above for those. Songs downloaded with an Apple Music subscription are copy-protected and can't be converted at all.
A little, since both formats are lossy. At 192 kbps or more it's hard to hear.
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