How To Convert FLAC to MP3
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a lossless audio compression format. It’s often used to digitally store and transfer music without any loss in quality. The files tend to be rather large though – for example, 3 minutes of audio could take up around 18 Mb.
On the other hand, MP3 is a lossy compression format that is supported by pretty much any audio player (plus the files tend to be smaller). Sometimes you need to convert FLAC to MP3, e.g. to be able to play it on your iPod. In this post I’ll describe how you can do that.
I tried out several free FLAC to MP3 converters prior to writing this tutorial. According to my testing, dBpoweramp seems to be the best choice. So that’s what I’ll use here. However, if this converter doesn’t work for you, there are certainly other viable alternatives, e.g. Foobar2000.
Okay, on with the tutorial 
Here’s the step-by-step guide for converting FLAC to MP3.
- Install dBpoweramp Music Converter. You can download it here.
- Install the FLAC codec for dBpoweramp.
- Start up the dBpoweramp Batch Converter. Usually you can find the converter here : Programs -> dBpoweramp Music Converter -> dBpoweramp Batch Converter
- Locate the FLAC files you want to convert using the built-in navigator and tick their checkboxes. You can also select an entire folder (or several) by clicking the boxes near them. Click “Convert”.
- A conversion settings window will pop up. There’s a lot of options here, but don’t worry – in most cases you will only need a few of them. First, select “MP3 (Lame)” from the Converting To dropdown. Then set the quality and bitrate according to your preferences. And finally, choose where you want the MP3 files to be placed. Then click “Convert >>”.
- dBpoweramp will then convert the FLAC files to the MP3 format. Depending on how many files you’re converting, and the quality settings, this could take a few minutes.
- Congratulations! Now you can put the converted MP3′s on your iPod, or whatever
Wow, you couldn’t have made converting flac files to mp3s any easier. Thanks so much for your tutorial!!
Thank you!
Macintosh users have a very easy option. And it’s totally free. Downoad MAX (Google Macintosh file converter), drop it into your dock, and it converts FLACS into mp3s without you even thinking about it. No tutorial required, no cash required, and it’s quick and 100% reliable. I even use it to transform “troublesome” mp3 files into usable ones.
PC users, as usual, struggle on with their creaky old apps on their dim-bulb old pcs. Sigh!
Great job dude. Thanks.
That was awesome! Worked like a charm. Thanks for the walkthrough!!
That was super easy. Thanks for making complicated computer stuff easy for us non-tech savvy people.
Worked perfectly. Utilized my dual-core processor well, putting each CPU to work on a different audio file. Sweet software, great walkthrough.
Brilliant! I made it!
Hey, I was wondering what is the best idea to use for the quality settings? I saw it goes up to 320, does that make it the best choice. I downloaded a live metallica album from their website and want to make it the best quality possible.
Thanks so much. Great free converter that actually converts the whole song.
AWESOME TUTORIAL and AWESOME PROGRAM! easy and SUPER QUICK! i’m one of those people that hunts and hunts to find the perfect program, and this.is.it.!
AwEsOmE
Awesome tutorial, thanks a lot!
Is it really free? The free version says it only some basic converts but no MP3 encoding.
Hmm, interesting. Nevertheless, the trial version still works for converting to MP3.
Thanks!!! Now I can listen to Rick Ross
i cant cut it into tracks
Thanks a lot fella, was trying to download a decent one for AGES. It really is appreciated.
The step by step was great, but when I got to the last step the program did nothing. I repeated several times but that final box gave no indication it was converting anything. It also looked different than the one in the tutorial as it had two boxes where the status bar should have been that were listed as cpu 1 and cpu 2. Any thoughts?
It’s been a while since I wrote the tutorial, so it’s quite possible that the current release of dbPoweramp has a slightly different interface. Still, clicking the “Convert” button should have made it start conversion. If it didn’t then that’s probably a bug.
Hey,
I’m glad that I found your blog on this topic. I agree with your other reviews, the information you provided was very helpful and well written.
I had a bunch of older flac files from months ago that I had forgotten about that I can now listen to on my iPod . . . . which is great!
Thanks!
Len
p.s. Has anyone noticed a significant sound quality difference using the slower setting?
Excellent.
DbPoweramp is excellent. It used all 4 cores (Q9550) and converted each song in seconds!!
Set it to constant bit rate of 320.
Thanks for a excellent Article.
Found you on Google. Went and d/l DbPowerramp and after a few false starts got it to work. Appreciate your help. thanks.
This is an awesome program. Converted 80 files (1.4GB) in 31 minutes. Thanks for turning me on to this
WOW!
Although I only had 4 files to convert, this fantastic program made use of my dual core CPU and completed the conversion process in 50 seconds.
Thank you.
This is awesome! Thanks! I ended up with .flac files by accident and was sure I was going to have to redownload in a different format, but this is super! Yay!
I’m a macbook pro user.
I went to Sourceforge.net
downloaded
max-0.7.1.tar.bz2
dragged the max icon to my doc
and the rest of the process was flawless.
thanks so much.
I’m grateful for quality.
Rich….
There are free programs that do this very well. My way: Use Winamp to convert FLAC files to .wav files. (See Preferences->Output->Plug-ins->Output->Nullsoft Disk Writer.) Then use EAC to compress the .wav files. (See “Compress WAVs” on Tools menu.) It only takes a couple minutes to convert a whole album.
Thanks heaps! after googling and searching and trying four different FLAC-MP3 programs, with no luck (and lots of backward steps) I’m pleased to have found your blog. I can say with confidence… this is the first time in five years I have actually found a blog useful.
Cheers, your instructions were dead easy as well. I’m now a huge fan of dBpoweramp.
it keeps saying that I have an error converting into mp3 because I need to purchase the thing… why didn’t you get that problem… why am I getting the problem….