Convert MP4 to MP3

Ok, I'll try one more time, starting over:

1. I have several albums in iTunes Music Library; all of the songs are AAC files. I want all of the songs in all albums to be MP3 files. After I right click an album in iTunes Music Library and select Create MP3 Version, I then have duplicate songs in the album, one is the original AAC file (that I want to keep) and one is the newly created MP3 version (that I want to delete after copying to the stick). I then click (control key) on each of the newly created MP3 files and copy the MP3 songs to the stick. After the MP3 songs are copied to the stick, I then have to go back into each of the albums in iTunes Music Library and click (control key) on each of the MP3 songs and delete them; that is the tedious part. I do not want duplicate songs in iTunes Music Library, one AAC and one MP3. Is there a way to Create MP3 Version WITHOUT having duplicate songs in the Music Library?

Copying the songs to a Playlist and then selecting Create MP3 Version does not solve the duplicaton issue; I still get duplicate songs in Music Library, the original AAC (that I want to keep) and one newly created MP3 that I want to delete. Deleting the MP3 songs in the Playlist does not delete the MP3 songs in the Music Library. There is no need to have one AAC song file and one MP3 song file for each song for each album in iTunes Music Library.

2. I am not using a MAC; I'm using a PC. The PC keyboard does not have an Option key, only a Delete key.

Chris -

SUCCESS! Thanx for being patient; Steps 1-10 above worked first time, everytime 🙂 I just finished converting 200 AAC files to MP3 files, they are on the stick, and now downloaded from the stick to Jukebox in my car! Sweet! The missing link for me was not telling you I was using a PC and not knowing the Shift & Delete shortcut. The only change I made to your solution was I selected "Keep File" instead of "Move To Recycle Bin".

Thanx Again!!!

woodshed1 wrote:

Chris -

SUCCESS!

Glad you got it sorted!

The only change I made to your solution was I selected "Keep File" instead of "Move To Recycle Bin".

So you want to keep the MP3 files on your hard drive but not iTunes?

Okay.

Just be aware that your iTunes music folder will continue to grow whenever you do this and the iTunes Music folder size (as shown in the iTunes in the bottom status bar) will not match what is really there.

I see what you mean; the iTunes music folder on the HD is quite a bit larger than what is shown in iTunes Music. Is it necessary to keep duplicates of the same albums on the HD and in the iTunes Music folder?

woodshed1 wrote:

Is it necessary to keep duplicates of the same albums on the HD and in the iTunes Music folder?

The iTunes Music folder is on the HD.

No, you don't need to keep duplicates of anything (though you should maintain regualr backups).

When you add files to iTunes, iTunes will make a copy of the file in the iTunes Media folder (specified in iTunes prefs > Advanced). After you add to iTunes, you can delete the original.

If you move the file to the /Automatically add to iTunes/ folder inside the /iTunes media/ folder, iTune will move (not copy) the file. Then the original file is not simply taking up space.

I keep a shortcut to this folder on my desktop then move stuff here and let iTunes take care of it.

Another method you can use is sorting iTunes by "Date Added" and deleting the .mp3 versions you created.

To do this with a OS X:

'control' click on the column bar in iTunes and check "Date Added" then click on "Date Added" to sort by most recently added songs first. Go to the top of the list and delete the .mp3 versions of the songs that you just created and added to your iTunes account.

HI;

Hopefully you can assist.

How do I do this, i.e. copy mp3 or aac converted files to an SD card and keep the file structure intact? I want to have the artist folder that then contains the album, that then contains the converted songs.

Following your playlist instructions to copy to my SD card, all of the songs copy over in the root directory. The file structure is lost.

I am trying to do this on a mac, where I have all my CD ripped files to apple lossless.

My car uses an SD card and will not play apple lossless. I need to convert to AAC, mp3, or some other format.

Thanks in advance

I have tried all the steps in these hints to convert mp4 to mp3 and have concluded that my PPC version of iTunes simply must not allow the conversion between the two formats. The option to "Create mp3 version" is there and will work with other audio files but not what it considers "video" files like mp4. Anyhow, I too use free third party tools, specifically the readily available "Movie Tools" bundle at ecamm-dot-com. They are handly little drag-n-drop tools that will convert a variety of different format into a variety of other formats. The make copies, leaving the originals intact. They use System software to do it too. I wish someone had recommended these to me a long time ago.

maine_moof wrote:

I have tried all the steps in these hints to convert mp4 to mp3 and have concluded that my PPC version of iTunes simply must not allow the conversion between the two formats.

It does allow conversion between formats.

The option to "Create mp3 version" is there and will work with other audio files but not what it considers "video" files like mp4.

Correct. MP3 cannot and does not contain video so you cannot convert videos to MP3.

Anyhow, I too use free third party tools, specifically the readily available "Movie Tools"

Movie Tools sends only the audio from videos to iTunes and iTunes and converts to MP3.

Chris CA wrote:

Anyhow, I too use free third party tools, specifically the readily available "Movie Tools"

Movie Tools sends only the audio from videos to iTunes and iTunes and converts to MP3.

Which is precisely the result that I, as well as many others in this thread (including the OP I suspect), have been looking for.

Brendinho wrote:

Click on music file, Go to File>Get info and in "Name and extension" simply delete .MP4 and type .mp3. It will ask you to save it as as MP3 so confirm and thats it.

Great!

and then it will not work.

MP3 and AAC are not the same type of file.

Changing the file extension will simply mess it up.

Brendinho wrote:

Thanks for the sarcasm mate but it works for me Chris.

No it does not.

Changing the file extension does NOT convert the file to MP3.

Doesn’t matter which OS you are using (Windows, Mac, Unix, etc) , It has never done this.

I think you are making things way to complicated. It's easy, it works and takes a minute.

But the users want to actually convert songs to MP3, not simply change the file extension which does nothing (except confuse the OS).

Do you really think you discovered something that no one, including Apple, knows exists?

I just had this problem. & I figured it out. What you do... If you got a new computer (like me) and in Itunes it has ACC files on your songs.,. You first do Prefences > import settings> and change it to the "MP3 encoder." THEN, you hit ok > ok > see in your music library, by all of the songs there will be a cloud like emoji with a arrow pointing down on it. You will click that, and it'll start to download. Once it's done, you can right click on the song, and you will see "Create MP3 version." and it should pop up another file, the ACC file will still be there. The MP3 one will be MPEG file. As far as I know you have to do each song individually, once you create them into MP3 versions you plug in your device, you click and drag the song to the device, or just right-click copy > & paste the song in the file of device. I hope this made sense to someone, and I could help!! 🙂

For the people who look for a way of converting video MP4 files to MP3 files just by using the stock applications in a Mac, here's what works for me: convert the MP4 video file to an Apple audio-only file by using QuickTime Player and convert the Apple audio-only file to an MP3 audio file by using iTunes.

If you are a long time user of a Mac the above should be enough, otherwise here are the detailed steps to do this on Mavericks with QuickTime Player 10.3 (727.4) and iTunes 12.3.2.25 (don't be put off by the number of words required to write them, to do it is rather simple):

1) first convert the video file to an audio-only file by using QuickTime Player:

* open Finder and go to the folder where your file is located and double-click your video MP4 file and QuickTime Player will open it (if your default video player is different than QuickTime Player just open QuickTime Player and open your video MP4 file in it)

* go to File > Export > Audio only... and a window will open allowing you to change the name of the file and to choose the location where your audio-only file will be stored; set the desired file name and location for it and press the Save button -> this will create an "Apple MPEG-4 Audio" file that has the extension "m4a" -> if you use the Finder to visualize it, the file will be displayed just with its name and the Type column will show it as "Apple MPEG-4 Audio" -> select the file, right-click it and choose Show Information from the pop-up menu and you will see its name and the "m4a" extension

2) convert the audio-only file to MP3 using iTunes

* in iTunes, go to iTunes / Settings (or press Command and ,) and the iTunes settings window will open with the General pane fields; if the General pane is not selected, click on it -> click the Import Settings in the section at the bottom of the pane -> the Import settings window is shown and select "MP3 Encoder" in the drop-down for the first field in the window and the desired audio quality in the second field, finally press the OK button -> now you're back to the General pane and press the OK button

* in Finder, double-click your converted "Apple MPEG-4 Audio" file (created at the step 1) above) and iTunes will open it and start playing it; if this does not happen, open iTunes manually and then drag the audio file from the Finder window into iTunes;

* in iTunes, if you do not see your file (even if you hear it playing), go to View / Music (or press Command and 1) and then click on Playlist -> this should now display the Recently Added Items list at the top of the window with your audio file shown as the first item in it -> click on your file and then right-click on your file and click on "Create MP3 version" option in the shown drop down -> you should now see one more file with the same name as your audio file in the first position of the Recently Added Items list: this is the desired MP3 file -> to confirm this, click on it and the right-click on it and click on "Display Information" option in the shown drop down -> then click on the File tab and look down at the last field on the tab that shows the location of the file with its name and extension