How to convert a m4a sound file to mp3?

Question

I tried to convert an .m4a file to an .mp3 file using ffmpeg with the following command:

$ ffmpeg -i music.m4a music.mp3

Unfortunately, I got a zero byte-sized file returned as output. The output of the command is as follows:

FFmpeg version 0.6-4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Sep 16 2011 17:11:24 with gcc 4.4.5
  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-shared --disable-static
  WARNING: library configuration mismatch
  libavutil   configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i686/cmov --cpu=i686 --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay
  libavcodec  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i686/cmov --cpu=i686 --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay
  libavformat configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i686/cmov --cpu=i686 --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay
  libavdevice configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i686/cmov --cpu=i686 --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay
  libavfilter configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i686/cmov --cpu=i686 --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay
  libswscale  configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i686/cmov --cpu=i686 --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay
  libpostproc configuration: --extra-version=4:0.6-2ubuntu6.2 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-vaapi --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --disable-stripping --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i686/cmov --cpu=i686 --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay
  libavutil     50.15. 1 / 50.15. 1
  libavcodec    52.72. 2 / 52.72. 2
  libavformat   52.64. 2 / 52.64. 2
  libavdevice   52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
  libavfilter    1.19. 0 /  1.19. 0
  libswscale     0.11. 0 /  0.11. 0
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'music.m4a':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : M4A 
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: M4A mp42isom
  Duration: 00:00:03.41, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 66 kb/s
    Stream #0.0(und): Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, mono, s16, 63 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to 'music.mp3':
    Stream #0.0(und): Audio: 0x0000, 44100 Hz, mono, s16, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Encoder (codec id 86017) not found for output stream #0.0

How can I convert an .m4a sound file to an .mp3 file format?

score 78 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 19 '23 at 12:52

The simple way to do it is:

ffmpeg -v 5 -y -i input.m4a -acodec libmp3lame -ac 2 -ab 192k output.mp3

If you want a script to wrap that, try aac2mp3, which should work for you. (The syntax for that last statement was pulled from there.) Inline code included below:

#!/bin/bash
#
# $Id: aac2mp3,v 1.2  03/30/2008 10:00 Daniel Tavares (dantavares@gmail.com) - 
# Based on Script -  rali Exp $
#
#
# Convert one or more AAC/M4A files to MP3.  Based on a script example
# I found at: http://gimpel.gi.funpic.de/Howtos/convert_aac/index.html
#
ME=`basename ${0}`
FFMPEG="/usr/bin/ffmpeg"
EXT="mp4"
BITRATE="128"
do_usage() {            # explanatory text
 echo "usage: ${ME} [-b nnn] [-e ext] [-f] [-c] [-r] [-v] [-h] [file list]"
 echo "       Convert music from AAC format to MP3"
 echo "  -m /path/app  Specify the location of ffmpeg(1)"
 echo "  -b nnn        bitrate for mp3 encoder to use"
 echo "  -e ext        Use .ext rather than .m4a extension"
 echo "  -f            Force overwrite of existing file"
 echo "  -c            Delete original AAC|M4A file(s)"
 echo "  -v            Verbose output"
 echo "  -h            This information"
 echo ""
 echo "For recursive directory, use: find -name '*.${EXT}' -exec ${ME} "{}" [args]     \;"
 exit 0
 }
do_error() {
 echo "$*"
 exit 1
 }
file_overwrite_check() {
 if [ "$FORCE" != "yes" ]
 then
   test -f "${1}" && do_error "${1} already exists."
 else
   test -f "${1}" && echo "  ${1} is being overwritten."
 fi
 }
create_mp3() {  # use ffmpeg(1) to convert from AAC to MP3
 file_overwrite_check "${2}"
 test $VERBOSE && echo -n "Converting file: ${1}"
 ${FFMPEG} -v 5 -y -i "${1}" -acodec libmp3lame -ac 2 -ab ${BITRATE}k "${2}";
 if [ $? -ne 0 ]
 then
   echo ""
   echo "Error!"
   do_cleanup
   do_error "Exiting"
 fi
 test $VERBOSE && echo ".  OK"
 }
do_cleanup() {  # Delete intermediate and (optionally) original file(s)
 test ${RMM4A} && rm -f "${1}"
 test $VERBOSE && echo ".  OK"
 }
do_set_bitrate() {
 test $VERBOSE && echo -n "Setting bitrate to: $1 kbps"
 BITRATE=$1
 test $VERBOSE && echo ".  OK"
 }
GETOPT=`getopt -o l:m:b:e:cfhrv -n ${ME} -- "$@"`
if [ $? -ne 0 ]
then
 do_usage
fi
eval set -- "$GETOPT"
while true
do
 case "$1" in
   -m) FFMPEG=$2 ; shift ; shift ;;
   -b) do_set_bitrate $2 ; shift ; shift ;;
   -e) EXT=$2 ; shift ; shift ;;
   -f) FORCE="yes" ; shift ;;
   -c) RMM4A="yes" ; shift ;;
   -v) VERBOSE="yes" ; shift ;;
   -h) do_usage ;;
   --) shift ; break ;;
    *)  do_usage ;;
 esac
done
test -f $FFMPEG || do_error "$FFMPEG not found. Use \"-m\" switch."
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then                    # Convert all files in current directory
 for IFILE in *.${EXT}
 do
   if [ "${IFILE}" == "*.${EXT}" ]
   then
     do_error "Not found ${EXT} in this folder."
   fi
   OUT=`echo "${IFILE}" | sed -e "s/\.${EXT}//g"`
   create_mp3 "${IFILE}" "${OUT}.mp3"
   do_cleanup "${IFILE}" 
 done
else                    # Convert listed files
 for IFILE in "$*"
 do
   test -f "${IFILE}" || do_error "${IFILE} not found."  
   OUT=`echo "${IFILE}" | sed -e "s/\.${EXT}//g"`    
   create_mp3 "${IFILE}" "${OUT}.mp3"
   do_cleanup "${IFILE}"    
 done    
fi   
exit 0

score 53 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 15 '19 at 23:48

53

This worked for me on Ubuntu 14.04:

avconv -i input.m4a ouptut.mp3

To obtain the avconv command, install libav-tools :

sudo apt-get install libav-tools

edited Feb 15 '19 at 23:48

Kevin Bowen

20,055
57
82
84

answered Oct 31 '14 at 08:37

teknopaul

2,137

score 45 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:03

45

SoundConverter can do this without having to mess around on the command-line, and it's available in the Ubuntu Software Center:

soundcoverter main window and prefs

conversion inprogress

edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:03

Community

1

answered Dec 22 '12 at 16:56

andrewsomething

37,702

crafter · Answer 4 · 2017-08-29T09:25:12.713

20

I needed an alternate solution because - my files were sitting in recursive subdirectories - I had spaces in paths.

So I eventually settled for :

 find . -type f -name '*.m4a' -exec bash -c 'avconv -i "$0" "${0/%m4a/mp3}"' '{}' \;

Then deleted the original files :

find . -type f -name '*.m4a' -exec bash -c 'rm "$0"' '{}' \;

edited Aug 29 '17 at 09:25

answered Feb 11 '15 at 18:27

crafter

659

score 14 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 31 '20 at 13:05

14

In Ubuntu 20.04 the original command works out of the box:

ffmpeg -i music.m4a music.mp3

answered Dec 31 '20 at 13:05

mrts

319

score 9 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 18 '14 at 18:45

I created a script to do this.

My requirements were:

Must maintain as many tags as possible
Must retain album artwork if exists
Must be 320K mp3s

Works on all m4a files in a directory, and outputs the new shiny Mp3s into a folder the script creates called Mp3. Warning; this script overwrites existing Mp3s in the output folder if they have the same name. Also uses files 'metadata.txt' and 'metadata2.txt' as temp files.

You'll need to install avconv if it doesn't exist already.

I couldn't figure out how to persist the 'Year' tag into ID3v1 tags, so I didn't enable that option.

#!/bin/bash
files=*.m4a
#create output folder if it doesnt exist
if [ ! -d Mp3 ]; then
        mkdir Mp3
fi

for file in $files; do
        mp3File=${file/%m4a/mp3}
        avconv -y -i "${file}" -f ffmetadata metadata.txt
        sed -e 's/^date=\(.*\)$/TYER=\1/' -e 's/^major_brand=.*$//' -e 's/^minor_version=.*$//' -e 's/^creation.*$//' -e 's/^compatible.*$//' -e 's/^encoder=.*$//' <metadata.txt >metadata2.txt
        avconv -y -i "${file}" -i metadata2.txt -ab 320k -map_metadata 1 -id3v2_version 3 "Mp3/${mp3File}"
done

Save it as 'convert.b', and then run the script by typing:

% bash convert.b

iDon'tKnoware · Answer 7 · 2019-06-15T11:33:06.287

7

Old question, but I don't see a very simple solution: Use VLC

In VLC you can load a .m4a file and convert it to .MP3 very easyllie.

Open VLC (no need to load any file)
Click on Media or press CTRL+R
Click on Conver/Save
On Profile select MP3
Select destination
Click on Start and wait. To know if it doing something or not, look at the time bar.

I hope this will be usefull for somebody.

edited Jun 15 '19 at 11:33

answered Jun 15 '19 at 09:58

iDon'tKnoware

131

score 7 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 06 '19 at 22:11

7

Sometimes avconv and ffmpeg don't work so cleanly, so:

sudo apt-get install faad lame
faad myfile.m4a -w | lame - myfile.mp3

always works for me.

edited Jun 06 '19 at 22:11

Ed Neville

103

answered May 11 '16 at 11:48

Eamonn Kenny

230
2
4

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 16 '19 at 11:13

On my L-Ubuntu, libav-tools was not available. I installed winff :

sudo apt-get install winff

which provides a graphical tool to convert audio and video files from and into many different formats.

Just tried : it works fine for .m4a to .mp3 :-)

Otherwise vlc also does a great job playing .m4a files :

sudo apt-get install vlc

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 12 '11 at 16:05

1

You probably need the unrestricted libav packages in medibuntu repository. Personally I would compile the latest ffmpeg with all codecs, as easy as 123 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=786095

answered Oct 12 '11 at 16:05

duffydack

7,584

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Mar 29 '18 at 14:59

I know this question is a bit old, but I think people still see this question (like me), so I share what I have found that worked for me and has a nice UI: fre:ac (https://www.freac.org/). To use in ubuntu just download the binary for ubuntu, decompress and run the file calle freac, that's it. Enjoy!

score 0 · Answer 12 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Nautilus Script

This Nautilus Script allows user to convert selected file(s) like m4a files --skipping any mp3 or non-audio files-- to mp3 format in the same location using ffmpeg. The new mp3 files will have the highest variable bitrate and preserve most tags, except the year.

#!/bin/sh
#Nautilus Script to convert selected file(s) - excluding any non-audio and MP3 file(s) - to MP3 format at highest quality with VBR (Variable Bit Rate)
OLDIFS=$IFS
IFS="
"
for filename in $@; do
filetype="$(file -bi "$filename" | awk -F "; " '{print $1}' | awk -F "/" '{print $1}')"
if [ "$filetype" != audio ]; then
echo "Skip non-audio file"
else
filesubtype="$(file -bi "$filename" | awk -F "; " '{print $1}' | awk -F "/" '{print $2}')"
if [ "$filesubtype" != mpeg ]; then
file_name_in=$(basename "$filename")
file_name_out="$(basename "$filename" | sed 's/\.[^.]*$//').mp3"
ffmpeg -loglevel quiet -y -i "$file_name_in" -acodec libmp3lame -aq 0 "$file_name_out"
fi
fi
done
IFS=$OLDIFS
/usr/bin/canberra-gtk-play --id="dialog-information" &
notify-send "Selected file(s) converted to MP3 format, excluding any non-audio and MP3 file(s)" -i gtk-dialog-info -t 5 -u normal

How to convert a m4a sound file to mp3?

12 Answers12

Nautilus Script

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