how to convert m4a to mp3?

It sounds as if you've managed to mess them up by changing the extension, though how I can't say. If you can't play an m4a file which has the correct extension then something has probably gone wrong with the file, though I wouldn't have thought changing the extension would do that, it simply tells the computer which program to use to open them. Without being able to examine the file it's not possible to say what has gone wrong. They don't play even in iTunes?

Pick one file, click it once to highlight it in the Finder, then hit command-i to get info: what does it say where I've put the arrows?

Thanks for taking the time to help out.

For Kind, they say: Apple MPEG-4 audio. And Extensions are all m4a's.

But this is after I've deleted all of them and downloaded all the memos from my phone again.
So now what I actually have is fine. The new issue that surfaced is that not all the memos from my phone were uploaded to the computer and I have no idea why.... I'm getting really tired of 'There's always a new issue popping up' and I'm sorry about this but if you could give me a hint as to what to do about this, how to get all my memos to be copied onto the computer, I would really appreciate it.

Note: Also, the conversion, I'm just gonna use iTunes to convert them into AAC files. So now they do appear in my phone's music player! Initial problem solved and thanks for that!

The answer is use ALL2MP3 it is a free application. After installintg it open itunes highlight you music drag all of it to the ALL2MP3 Icon and let it do it's thing. once done go you your Itunes directory and you will see that each song is duplicated. In your search bar in itunes enter mp3 then only mp3 songs will be listed. highlight the songs and drag them tou you device or drag them to a folder wala you done. If you don't like the duplicated drag the mp3's to tarsh.

My biggest iTune music problem is with the mp4p files. First I was informed to sign-up for iTunes Plus and then you can convert those mp4p files for mp4a's... not so. I found app that converts mp4p files to mp3 files but I found you have to turn off iTune match because iCloud exchange them back. Now I find the exchange eventually happens any way, it just takes iCloud a little longer. On my Sonos system it will play mp4a files but when iCloud switches the files back you have to start the whole time consuming task all over.

I have collected thousands of iTune pieces of music over the years and it's a shame I can't listen to the music over quality speakers powered by a quality amp.

BTW, you can't repurchase the music because iTunes Store says it's already purchased making it impossible to buy and download.

Any help?

Thanks.

Files are m4p and m4a (not mp4p & mp4a)

Jagged Edge wrote:

My biggest iTune music problem is with the mp4p files. First I was informed to sign-up for iTunes Plus and then you can convert those mp4p files for mp4a's... not so.

Delete the m4p (not mp4p) and redownload it via iTunes Match.

None of these sugestions are workable for an m4a podcast... Any ideas? Thanks.

Drag the episode out to the Desktop then drag it back into the Music list, then proceed as in my post above.

That worked perfectly. Thank you for you time and effort.

Chris CA wrote:

(a year and a half later...)

Benwon wrote:

You can download a M4A to MP3 converter for mac to convert m4a to mp3.

Why?

You can convert using iTunes.

Unless the purchase is very old, click here and follow the instructions.

Shankwalre wrote:

Chris CA wrote:

(a year and a half later...)

Benwon wrote:

You can download a M4A to MP3 converter for mac to convert m4a to mp3.

Why?

You can convert using iTunes.

Unless the purchase is very old, click here and follow the instructions.

It wasn't a purchase.

It was an .m4a recorded using QuickTime.

Thank you for this

Hi Roger

I used the method you suggested to convert some MPEG-4 music files to mp3. I tried to convert a playlist in one go and after 3 tracks had been done iTunes hung up. At the second attempt it hung up after 13 had been completed. Now every time I try to continue I get a Windows pop up message that iTunes has stopped working and has to be closed. Any ideas as to what is going wrong?

Hi SherryinDallas

www.digitaltrends.com have a tutorial using iTunes but as ever be careful for the add-ons I use Freemaker Audio Converter but they do not have the application that you require.

Regards

neilfrommalaga

iTunes should be able to convert any number of songs sequentially; I've not had experience of it on Windows but it certainly ought to work there, though there may be interference from something else. The best place to ask would be in the iTunes for Windows forum.

...or if you don't want to use iTunes, use the " Convert / Stream " option under " File " in VLC media player. For those who have not heard of VLC, it's the swiss knife of media and it's free, available for Windows and OSX > http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

click on that will bring the following dialog box. Click 'open media' and select your song, choose the profile

and then click on Save as file

Choose 'audio -mp3 ' from the dropdown box, use customize to set bit rate, click browse to set destination

then click " Save "