A lossless FLAC library is great at home, but it eats phone storage and some players and cars cannot read it. Converting to MP3 gives you portable copies at a fifth of the size while your FLAC originals stay untouched. Drop a whole album in; the tracks are converted one after another and can be downloaded as a single ZIP.
How to convert FLAC to MP3
- Click Select FLAC files or drag them onto the box above. You can add as many as you like.
- Check that the target says MP3. Click the slider icon next to a file to change its options.
- Press Convert. Each file shows its own progress, and the work happens on your device.
- Download files one by one, or use Download all (ZIP). Press Convert more to start a new batch.
Keep your FLAC files as the master copy. If a better format comes along you can convert again from the lossless source, which you cannot do from MP3.
FLAC vs MP3
What is FLAC?
FLAC compresses audio losslessly, typically to 50–60% of the WAV size, and decodes back to exactly the original samples. It is the usual format for CD rips and hi-res downloads at 24-bit / 96 kHz or more, with tags stored as Vorbis comments. More about the FLAC format.
What is MP3?
MP3 trades a little fidelity for files roughly five times smaller than FLAC at 320 kbps, and plays on every device ever made with a headphone socket. More about the MP3 format.
| FLAC | MP3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Free Lossless Audio Codec | MP3 audio |
| Extensions | .flac | .mp3 |
| MIME type | audio/flac | audio/mpeg |
When to convert FLAC to MP3
- Your phone or music player is filling up with lossless files.
- A car stereo, old iPod or smart speaker does not support FLAC.
- You want to share a few tracks without sending hundreds of megabytes.
- A DJ app or video editor handles MP3 more reliably.
Quality and settings
FLAC is a perfect source, so the MP3 is as good as MP3 gets. 320 kbps is the choice for critical listening on good headphones; 256 kbps is indistinguishable for nearly everyone; 192 kbps is fine for the car or the gym. Hi-res 24-bit / 96 kHz files are resampled to 48 kHz, the maximum MP3 supports, or choose 44.1 kHz in the options. Artist, album, title and track number are copied from the FLAC tags into ID3v2.3, which every player reads.