Export M4a files as MP3

I think that I used to be able to do this from within iTunes, but I am not sure. *I want to take some of my songs, which I imported from a CD and export them as MP3s, so that I can play them on my other MP3 player, which is not an iPod and only plays MP3s.* How can I do this, either with iTunes, Automater or something else (GarageBand?) that came on my Mac? If none of these will work, is there a good utility, preferably freeware, that will do the job?
Thanks,Mark

It would probably be faster and the quality of the results would be better if you just re-ripped the CD as mp3 files. In iTunes, go to Preferences>Advanced>Importing and change your importing preferences to .mp3 then re-rip the CD.
You could convert the existing files by going to Preferences>Advanced>Importing and change your importing preferences to .mp3 then selecting the files you want to convert and then selecting "Convert to mp3" from the Advanced menu. However, whenever you convert from one lossy format to another, there is always some additional loss in quality. My experience has also been that converting takes longer than re-ripping.

Similar Messages

Converting m4a files to mp3

How do i convert m4a files to mp3 format? Call me old fashion but i still like to burn a mp3 disc. thanks

Are you using iMovie? Can you explain what/how you are getting to the point that you want to burn the video. My suggestions would depend on your workflow and I burn movies to DVD quite often.

Converting m4a files to mp3, or joining m4a files

Hi,
Does anyone know to convert m4a files to mp3 files? or to join m4a files together?
Thanks

Use the instructions in this article to convert unprotected music to MP3 format.
(10147)

Export MOV files to MP3

Dear all,
I need to convert a movie file (MOV format) to an audio-only file (MP3 format). I've followed the tutorial on:
http://www.mango-design.net/2009/03/mac-converting-mov-files-to-mp3/
I believed it was very simple as explained in the document but instead I have 2 problems:
1) I haven't the 'Script Editor/Make New AppleScript' function under the 'services' menu (point 3 in the document). Can anyone tell me how can I add that menu?
2) Anyway, when I run the script directly with AppleScript Editor (point 1 in the document) I receive the following error:
"Expected end of line but found number."
I tried to solve the problem (I supposed It was simple, really not) in different ways without success.
I run on 10.6.2.
Could anyone help me?
Thank you in advance,
--Carlo
AppleScript:
set saveRef to (choose file name with prompt "Save audio track as AIFF" default name "untitled.aiff")
tell application "QuickTime Player"
export movie 1 to saveRef as AIFF
----------

Hi Oriolo,
You must [install QuickTime Player 7|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3678?viewlocale=en_US] and use it to run your script, as follows:
*set saveRef to (choose file name with prompt "Save audio track as AIFF" default name "untitled.aiff")*
*tell application "QuickTime Player 7"*
*export document 1 to saveRef as AIFF*
*end tell*

Trouble converting downloaded m4a files to mp3 format

This has never happened to me before. I downloaded a full album and 3 of the 13 songs get an error saying "the file format is not valid" when I try to convert the files to mp3 format. How do I go about fixing this?

+if I do that, it will create the MP3 files all in the same iTunes Music folder as the AAC files,+
Yes, if the AACs are by artist/album
+and worse, it will probably duplicate each song in the playlist.+
No, the conversion process does not touch any playlists.
+The only thing I can think of is to either (A) have a blowaway copy of iTunes on the Windows PC, copy all the AAC files to it, import them, and convert them, or (B) allow my real iTunes to duplicate them all, make the MP3 CDs, sort by create date or file type, and delete the MP3 duplicates from the library.+
B sounds easier than A. You can also consider doing the conversions with a non-iTunes program such as Switch, which allows you to specify the destination folder for the new file.

Convert m4P & m4a files to mp3

Hi there, I tried to burn a music CD in MP3 format with some files from iTunes library but it did not work. Some files are in m4p (purchased) the others in m4a format.
Any suggestions ? I even downloaded some free/trial ware to convert files but with no luck so far. What's the best, most secure, fast and easiest way ?
Erwin

iTunes can only burn an MP3 disc from files that are already in MP3 format.
Going forward, you should either buy your songs in MP3 format from online retailers who sell MP3s, or buy iTunes Plus AACs and convert them to MP3.
iTunes protected tracks in .m4p format cannot be converted, but you can check out the one-time upgrade to iTunes Plus.

How do I convert m4a files to mp3 without importing to Library?

I have a bunch of music that is m4a that I want to convert to mp3, but I don't want to import it into my library or add folders or whatever. Is that possible? I need to make sure all of the mp3 tags are created properly based on the m4a's or the folder/filenames.

Use a 3rd party conversion program such as Switch to do the conversion outside of iTunes.

Converting m4a files to mp3....how to do it?

Is there a easy way to do it on Itunes? Thanks in advance.

Click here and follow the instructions.
(51088)

M4a conversion to mp3 files

how do I convert itune downloads from M4A file to MP3 file so I can load on USB stick for car

Click here and follow the instructions.
(110514)

M4A^^file

all my downloaded music is unplayable!!! music files have changed into M4A^^files and MP3^^files.i can see them in the hard drive all with strange FADED icons but wont play!my music i ripped from cd's is still ok(MPEG Layer3 Audio Files)but all downloaded music files are arsed up!!
....H>E>L>P pls.

Hi Jeremiah,
Most likely is that you've misspelt a file or folder name in the path to the m4a file, which is why the server says it can't be found if you enter that URL in the browser. If the URL doesn't point to a valid file it will result in the little round ! in iTunes.
Another possibility is to check the permissions on the file on the server - make sure it can be read by visitors as the server won't serve it up to you without the right permissions.
Good luck,
Greg

GoFlex Home won't stream m4a files to iPad

When I access my GoFlex Home server I can play mp4 videos just fine , but when I access an m4a audio file I get an unsupported format message. I do understand about the m4p protected files but not being able to play my own CDs imported to iTunes just doesn't seem right. Suggestions?

Ok, update. I was going to painstakingly covert my m4a files to mp3s and during the process of doing the first cd I discovered that while playing the first converted song, now an mp3, GoFlex Access would play the following m4a files. Now this is really weird. So the GoFlex Access app can play the m4a files but only once the player starts streaming an mp3. Selecting any individual m4a I still get the unsupported format message.

I have transferd music from my ipod to my new computer and some of the files are not coming over, i have noticed the m4a files come across but the mp3 do not, any ideas how i can resolve this? thanks

I have just bought a new computer and i am transfering my music from my ipod onto my new computer, I have put the files from the music option from my ipod onto my computer. alot of the songs have come across, however there is alot of songs that havent. I have noticed that the m4a files come across but the mp3 does not. the new computer has windows 8 on it, which is very new to me. when i try and play the mp3 files, it will open them up in a different programme and will not open in itunes. does anyone know what i can do?!?!!?!?!
THANKS

Have you looked at the previous discussions listed on the right side of this page under the heading "More Like This"?
BTW this is the iPod touch forum

How can I convert an M4A file to an MP3 version?

How can I convert an M4A file to an MP3 version?

Thanks for your reply but that's not my problem.
I know that I can burn an M4A file to a CD and then import it back as an MP3, but that's an annoying process and wastes blank CDs. I thought iTunes had a menu choice to convert a selected file to MP3 format. I guess that's not true with M4A versions.
I will simply buy my music from Amazon from now on and I won't have to deal with this file format and protection nonsense. I can download music from Amazon in MP3 format as the rest of my music is in.

Why are my mp3's and m4a files no longer recognized?

All of a sudden, 95% of the 10,000 music tracks in my iTunes Library has become unplayable. It concerns mp3 and m4a files with music that I purchased and ripped over the years. Wifi syncing to my iPhone 4s made it worse: now the Music app on my iPhone won't play them either.
All tracks added before Mid September 2012 are dead. They can be seen in the library and metadata can be read in iTunes. But when I click on the file, nothing happens. Newer files do play normally, though. MP3's that were not located in the iTunes library also still are playable.
I tried opening the files with VLC player, Quicktime and even on a windows machine. All I get is a message that songitle.mp3 cannot be played because it's format is not recognised.
It has been over a week since I first noticed the problem and I spend many late hours. What is going on? Has Spotlight messed with my music's metadata? Is Apple denying me access to my own files? HELP!
What I tried:
- restore files from Time Machine backup: same problem
- play files on other machines: same problem
- repair a file with MP3 Scan+Repair. It says: ERROR: Unknown file format!
- decrypt HD by disabling FileVault: no improvement and Time Machine won't work anymore (Stupid)
- do a fresh install of Mountain Lion: no improvement
- restore files from Carbon Copy Clone: same problem (has Spotlight done this while indexing the external HDD?
- boot from the Carbon Copy Clone (turned out impossible due to the Verbatim external drive that won't boot-should have tested that before I ran into trouble )
- find solutions in apple discussions, google etc for almost ten days: no solution
What struck me in Console
Some messages in Console struck me, but did not lead me to any useful clues:
25-11-12 22:33:48,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(317) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd
26-11-12 21:06:44,919 sandboxd[970]: ([963]) QuickTime Player(963) deny file-read-data /Users/MyName/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Folder/Album/Song.mp3
25-11-12 22:51:01,030 mdwrite[422]: *** Assertion failure in +[MDKeyRing _copyKeychainAtURL:canCreate:], /SourceCache/Spotlight/Spotlight-707.3/xpc-services/mdwrite/MDKeyRing.m:131
25-11-12 22:53:18,757 mdwrite[525]: Metadata.framework [Fatal]: Couldn't add Spotlight Metadata Privacy password to keychain! [osErr:-50]
26-11-12 21:19:59,863 com.apple.PassXPCService[1166]: PAPassValidator: _signatureIsValid failed to load signature file
Software Versions:
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
iTunes 10.7 (21)
Quicktime Version 10.2 (603.6)
On iPhone 4S: iOS 6.0.1
Hardware
MBP 13" Late 2011,
2.8 GHz Intel Core\
6 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

You're welcome: I am happy you are thinking along.
We may me on to something: I could not access my account on Sep 11 and did a restore from TM. It did not go too smoothly, but it worked. That's when I decided to pick up the habit of making carbon clone copies again.
Now if something would have been wrong with the songs in the iTunes/Music folder, it must have been copied just as wrong to the carbon clone. Hence the reason why my backed up songs won't play. So you could be right that the files were probably messed up Mid September and not just two weeks ago.
But why haven't I noticed it before? Probably because all the music I like to hear is in my iPhone, that apperently doesn't do to many wifi syncing? It is strange though that for two months I could still play the music on my iPhone.
What did happen just before I could not play them anymore, was the iOS update to 6.0.1. My phone's battery was draining fast and it became hot. Maybe the phone's Spotlight had to re-index? I don't know.
FV was there since Jan, when I set up this machine. I did not run some kind of utility particularly on my music files.
I think you are wise to stick to your OS version as long as it works well. Upgrading usually comes with some issues.
About my setup:
I started out on another MBP (mid 2009) with 10.5. Upgraded to 10.6 then to 10.7. Had some kernel panic issues, but solved them.The machine got stolen in January and I got my current MBP (late 2011) with 10.7 on it that I upgraded to 10.8 this summer. I started using FV in Jan with the new machine. The theft made me wonder if I shouldn't be more Utilities I use ever so infrequently:
Onyx
Drive Genius
ClamAV
Carbon Copy Cloner.
Syncing/Backup takes place to
Time Machine (full drive)
iCloud (limited data)
SugarSync (limited data)
Dropbox (limited data)
Google Drive (limited data)
Carbon Copy Cloner (full drive)
Other things:
I put a hardware password on my laptop and a use Prey tracking software (not that it helped me to find back my old laptop btw)
I can't remember what utility I was running at the time of the lockout in September. Maybe there was something like Drive Genius running when I had to close my MBP and leave. But since the music on my TM has the same problem, the whole lockout may not be the reason of the corrupted songs.
Perhaps I should just accept my losses. I found an older backup with the oldest 90% of the songs that work. It's just that I am curious to know what went wrong to keep it from happening again.
About moving to another forum: what do you think would be the best choice? OS X Mountain Lion?

Walkman app not showing my downloaded podcast mp3 and m4a files

Hi all,
Hope someone can help me with an Issue on my Z3 Compact running Lollipop 5.0.2 firmware.
I have a Music folder on my SDCard which contains all my music files in subfolders and all these files appear in the Walkman app just fine.
I also have two folders called 'Podcasts' - one on the internal storage and one on the SDCard which contain mp3 and m4a files which I have downloaded using 3rd party apps.
I would like to listen to these podcast files using the Walkman app - but they will not appear in Walkman - even if I try the Folders options.but it still will not show either of the Podcast folders.
The weird thing is it lists voices and sounds / voices rom two different SatNav folders which are stored on the SDCard - but not the podcast folders!!
It even lists a folder of foreign language audio mp3 files - but not the podcast files.
The podcast files appear fine in PowerAmp whic even shows the tags and descriptions etc....So, why not Walkman?
I even tried unmounting and re-mounting the SDCard to see if it would rescan - but still nothing.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Solved!
Go to Solution.

@harryw66
You should contact the devs
http://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/WALKMAN/Walkman-Beta-Test/m-p/953659#U953659
"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." Kurt Cobain (1967-1994)

Export M4a files as MP3

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for