Convert WAV to MP3

A WAV holds every sample uncompressed, which is exactly right while you are recording or editing and exactly wrong the moment you need to send it. MP3 at 320 kbps keeps what listening can hear at about a quarter of the size — an hour of 16-bit stereo WAV is roughly 635 megabytes, and the same hour of MP3 is 144.

  1. Your recordings

    Drop your WAV files here

    WAVMP3

    Your files are never uploaded.

  2. What you want back

  3. Your files

How to convert WAV to MP3

  1. Add your WAV files

    One take or a session folder. They are read by your browser and never uploaded.

  2. Leave it on MP3

    320 kbps constant — the most the format can carry.

  3. Save the MP3s

    Individually, or the batch as a zip.

What you get

A quarter of the size, before quality enters into it

The point of this conversion is the email attachment limit, the phone's storage, the upload form. 320 kbps is deliberately the only bitrate offered: it already takes three-quarters of the WAV's bytes away, and every step below it trades audible quality for megabytes you rarely need back.

The top of the format, not a preset menu

Encoders that default to 128 kbps made MP3's reputation worse than the format is. At 320, for ordinary listening, the difference from the WAV is very hard to hear — the encode is not where your recording gets worse.

A session at a time

Drop the whole folder of takes. Each converts in turn, keeps its name, and a zip carries them out together.

Recordings stay on your machine

Demos, interviews, session bounces — none of it is uploaded. The encoder runs inside this page, and the network tab will show you nothing leaving but the page itself.

Questions about WAV and MP3

Should I keep the WAV afterwards?
If the recording matters, yes. MP3 is lossy: what the encode discards is gone, and converting back to WAV later reproduces the MP3, not the original. Treat the MP3 as the copy you hand out and the WAV as the master you keep — storage is cheaper than a lost take.
Why only 320 kbps?
Because 320 already removes about three-quarters of the WAV's size, and every lower setting spends quality on a problem you have mostly solved. A page of bitrate options is a page asking you to make a mistake. If you genuinely need smaller files than 320 produces, the audio is probably speech — and speech survives lower bitrates in an editor built for that trade.
Does it handle 24-bit or high-sample-rate WAV?
Yes. Studio WAVs at 24-bit or 96 kHz decode fine; the audio is resampled to 44.1 kHz on the way to MP3 — the format's most common rate, and the one this tool encodes at. For listening copies that is right. For an archive, again: keep the WAV.
Will it take a broken or odd WAV?
Mostly. WAV is a loose family, and browsers read the common shapes — PCM, 16 or 24 bit, any normal rate. A WAV that is secretly something else (a renamed raw dump, a DAW's project cache) fails on its own row with a message, and the rest of the batch carries on.
Is it free, and is my file uploaded?
Free, no account, no limit on files or minutes. 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.