Convert AAC to MP3

A bare .aac file is an audio stream with no box around it — recorders, radio rippers and broadcast tools produce them, and a surprising number of players refuse them even though the audio inside is ordinary. MP3 is the format nothing refuses, and your browser can decode the stream and re-encode it without the file going anywhere.

  1. Your audio files

    Drop your AAC files here

    AACMP3WAV

    Your files are never uploaded.

  2. What you want back

  3. Your files

How to convert AAC to MP3

  1. Add your AAC files

    Bare .aac streams, and .m4a files too. Decoded by your browser, never uploaded.

  2. Leave it on MP3

    320 kbps. Or WAV, if the audio is going into an editor next.

  3. Save the MP3s

    One at a time, or the batch as a zip.

What you get

A file that opens where the stream would not

The .aac extension confuses players that would happily play the same audio inside an .m4a. Converting to MP3 ends the format lottery: everything since the nineties opens it, car stereo included.

The decoder is already in the browser

AAC decoding was measured here in Chromium, Firefox and WebKit — raw ADTS streams included — so there is nothing to download and nothing to install. The first file converts as fast as the fiftieth.

One re-encode, at the top of the format

AAC to MP3 is lossy-to-lossy, so a generation of loss is unavoidable; encoding at 320 kbps keeps the loss as small as MP3 allows. If nothing forces MP3, the WAV target skips the second loss entirely.

Your audio is never uploaded

Decode and encode both run in this page. No server, no queue, no copy of your recordings anywhere else.

Questions about AAC

What is the difference between AAC and M4A?
The audio is the same; the wrapping differs. M4A is AAC inside an MP4-family container with room for tags and artwork; a bare .aac file is the raw stream with nothing around it, which is exactly why some software refuses it — there is no index to seek by. This page takes both.
Will converting lose quality?
One generation's worth, kept small: both formats are lossy, and the re-encode runs at 320 kbps — MP3's ceiling. For speech it is inaudible; for music it is very close. If the file is headed into an editor rather than a player, choose WAV and add no loss at all.
Isn't AAC the better format anyway?
At the same bitrate, generally yes — AAC is the newer design, which is why phones and streaming use it. This page exists for the other half of reality: the gear and forms that never learned it. Better-compressed audio nobody can open loses to slightly-larger audio everything can.
Why did my file fail?
Usually DRM — protected store purchases stay locked, and the decryption never passes through a page like this. A plain recording or rip converts; failures land on the file's own row with the reason, and the rest of a batch carries on.
Is it free, and is my file uploaded?
Free, no account, no limit. Everything runs in your browser. Your files are never uploaded.

Need the words rather than the sound? The transcriber turns recordings into text, on this same no-upload model. Cleaning up a noisy recording first? Remove the background noise. Or see all the audio tools.