# M4A to MP3

Convert M4A and AAC files to MP3 so anything will play them. Free, no signup, and the file is converted on your device, not uploaded.

Canonical page: https://filetity.com/m4a-to-mp3

## Capabilities

- Free: Yes, with no watermark and no page limit.
- Account required: No. There is no account system.
- Processed on device: Yes. The file is read by your browser and never uploaded. There is no server to send it to.
- Formats: M4A, AAC and MP4 audio in. MP3 out, at a quality you choose, or WAV.
- Limits: A DRM protected file bought from a store cannot be converted by anything running in a browser, and is refused rather than producing a broken file.
- Mobile: Yes, on any modern mobile browser. Large files are limited by the memory the phone gives the browser.
- Offline: Yes, once the page has loaded. The tool keeps working with no network connection.

## Questions

### Why does my phone record in M4A anyway?

Because AAC inside an M4A sounds better than MP3 at the same size, which is why Apple's Voice Memos and most Android recorders default to it. The trouble is everything else: car stereos, older players and some upload forms still expect MP3, which is the only reason to convert.

### Am I losing quality by converting?

A little, because an M4A is already compressed and MP3 compresses the decoded result again. It is usually inaudible for speech, which is what most M4A files are. The tool never targets a higher bitrate than the source spent, so it will not hand you a larger file and call it better.

### Will it convert a song I bought from a store?

Not if it carries DRM, and no tool running in a browser can. Protected files are refused with a message rather than producing something broken. Files you recorded yourself, or bought without protection, convert normally.

### Is M4A the same as MP4?

They are the same container with different extensions by convention: .m4a signals it holds only audio, .mp4 signals there is video too. This page takes either and uses whatever audio track it finds, which is why an MP4 with no picture works here as well.

### Does the recording keep its length and any chapters?

The length is preserved exactly. Chapter markers and artwork are not, because they live in the M4A container and MP3 stores that sort of thing differently, so what comes out is the audio itself rather than everything wrapped around it.

## Related tools

- [Video to MP3](https://filetity.com/video-to-mp3): Pull the soundtrack out of a video and save it as MP3.
- [Compress Audio](https://filetity.com/compress-audio): Make an audio file smaller, with the size shown before you start.