Convert WAV to MP3

MP3 is a perceptual codec. It splits the sound into short frames and frequency bands, then spends its bits where hearing is sensitive and starves the parts hearing cannot resolve: very quiet sounds next to loud ones, content above roughly 16 to 20 kHz, and fine stereo detail that the two ears cannot tell apart. What is removed is gone for good, which is the whole reason the file is small.

At 320 kbps the codec has enough budget that, in blind listening tests, almost nobody can pick the MP3 from the original on ordinary music. At 128 kbps the losses become audible on cymbals, applause and dense mixes as a faint swirling. The conversion here also resamples nothing: a 44.1 kHz WAV becomes a 44.1 kHz MP3, and stereo stays stereo.

We default to 320 kbps. It is the highest MP3 allows, it is what most people mean by "best quality MP3", and the file is still a fraction of the WAV. Keep it for anything you might listen to on good headphones, for music you are handing to someone else, and for anything that will be re-encoded again later, since each lossy pass compounds the loss.

Drop to 192 kbps for speech, podcasts and audiobooks, where the content is narrow and 192 sounds identical to 320 while saving another third. Choose 128 kbps only when the file has to be tiny: a voicemail, an attachment for a strict mailbox limit, a preview clip. The bitrate control sits under More options, along with start and end trim points.

Do not make an MP3 your only copy. If the WAV is a master, a recording of something that cannot be repeated, or a stem you may edit again, keep the WAV or convert it to FLAC, which is lossless and about half the size. Make the MP3 as a delivery copy on the side.

Do not convert a WAV that started life as an MP3. Some tools export MP3s as WAV, and encoding that again stacks two rounds of loss for no gain; use the original MP3 instead. And if the destination is an Apple device or a modern player, M4A at 256 kbps gives better quality than MP3 at the same size. MP3 wins only on the one thing it has always won on: it plays absolutely everywhere.

Drop the WAV file onto the box at the top of this page, or click the box to pick it, or paste it. The page reads the first bytes to confirm it really is a WAV, shows its length and sample rate, and selects MP3 at 320 kbps as the suggested output.

If you want another bitrate or a trimmed section, open More options and set them. Then press Convert. A save dialog asks where to put the file; the encoding starts as soon as you choose, runs on your machine, and a three-minute song takes a few seconds on a laptop. The result is a normal MP3 with no metadata beyond what the encoder writes, ready to send, play or drop into a playlist.