Convert Mac WMA audio files to MP3?

Are you sure this really works?

I have tried this but I always get the error: “Cannot open the file -pathname—. Check it exists and you have read access"

A close look at the Documentation for switch suggests that wma conversion only works in the Windows version of this app:
________________________________________________

Q. What file formats does the converter support?

Switch can open files in the following formats:

* wav (PCM, ADPCM, aLaw, uLaw, and others, see here)
* mp3 (MPEG Layer 3)
* au
* aif/aiff
* gsm
* vox
* raw
* ogg
* flac
* aac*
* m4a*
* mp2 (MPEG Layer 2)
* wma*+
* rm / ra / ram+
* dvf (Not all dvf recorders are supported)+
* msv (Not all msv recorders are supported)+
* dss (SP Mode only)+
* cda+
* .mov !
* .amr !

*Copy protected files are not decoded
+ Windows only
! Mac OS X only
________________________________________________

The switch converter is nice - but does not correctly convert wma lossless files - you just get a blank mp3 out of it. So far I have not been able to find any app that will allow direct conversion of lossless WMA files on the mac to any other format.

The only work around is by using the awful Windows Media Player 9 on the mac to play (it can't burn or save as...) and then capture this using Audio Hijack Pro (what a hassle). Because WMP 9 is such a poorly made app you cannot do any other cpu interaction at the same time (simply selecting menus will cause WMP 9 to pause while playing lossless files!).

Flip4Mac doesn't deal with them, nor Audion, nor Sound Converter nor EasyWMA. In short, WMA Lossless is proprietary to Windows for anything other than playing using an app which is no longer being updated by Microsoft. Not cool.

I downloaded "switch" but after they convert to mp3, they still won't play. Please help me by adding a little more information.

Thanx...

(Windows XP)

Switch looks great-- except you need Flip4mac to work with Windows Media, and that does not yet have a version for Intel Macs. Damn bloody edge

"Cannot open the file -pathname—. Check it exists and you have read access"
This happens also on my MacBook Pro when trying to convert cpm to mp3

I think I might have a solution! I dropped my WMA lossless files into Toast 7 and saved the disc image as a .Sd2f format file. Then in Toast I said Mount Disc Image and had it mount the new Sd2f file. Up popped an Audio CD in the finder window with AIFF files. Let me know if it works for you. I guess you could burn the CD as well, but I didn't need to.

Switch crashes/quits every time I've tried to convert a flac file to mp3 on os X. No info at the Switch site is very helpful or useful at all, including the forum. Sorry but Switch gets major thumbs-down from my end (for OS X, have no idea about wimpc)!

Here is what worked for me -- MAX 0.6.1 -- totally easy & error free!! (and it's FREEWARE!) Stephen Booth is a CyberGod!

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19873#descContainer_link

Max is an application for creating high-quality audio files in various formats, from compact discs or files.

When extracting audio from compact discs, Max offers the maximum in flexibility to ensure the true sound of your CD is faithfully extracted. For pristine discs, Max offers a high-speed ripper with no error correction. For damaged discs, Max can either use its built-in comparison ripper (for drives that cache audio) or the error-correcting power of cdparanoia.

Another option possibly? (downloaded but haven't tried becuz Max was so incredible)

ACTX
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14246

ACT stands for X Audio Compression Toolkit. It is a GUI based front end .... It does the basic commands of these applications and adds a few features to speed up productivity in creation of etree.org standard filesets.

referred by/from the author of MacFLAC
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~greu0012/macflac/
http://danrules.com/macflac/

Good luck if anyone can make any sense of Switch without pulling hair out, but MAX gets my big thumbs up!!!

Oh yeah: may be of interest -- great resource:

Open Source Audio Projects! http://www.archive.org/details/audio

Switch worked perfectly for me converting a wma file to mp3.

Hey Bob... talking about general audio conversion Max seems great (though I haven't tried to convert files other than unprotected .wma and as soon as they are dragged to the converter the error message pops up and tells you that .wma is an unrecognized format therefore the file cannot be added to the converter... The info on this page are for WMA to MP3 conversion! :) Thanks for the info on Max... is a great freeware find for mac, though please stick to the topic "WMA to MP3 conversion".
PS: Kudos for the great page Dave Taylor! Here is to you! (hot Java)

By the way... I downloaded Switch (not plus version) and tried to convert a wma file. The application is mind numbingly easy:
1) DragNDrop the file/s to convert
2) Select the output format (set its option if you like)
3) If you do not have the import/export flip4mac component, the app will warn you about it and give the option to connect to microsoft to download and install it
4) Once downloaded/installed the app will show another dialog box asking you if you want to proceed with conversion
5) click ok and conversion will start.

There you go...

PS: Dave reports that you can do the same with music man and soundgrinder... well at the time of writing this comment the music man link leads to a broken link or non existing site. While Soundgrinder (now version 2.5) is a trial download and the supported file format listed on the soundgrinder site do not specify any support for wma files

best 2 u all!

Hey Dave,

I recently got a new cell phone and I want to upload my music into it. The only thing is that my phone takes wma files only. How do I convert my mp3's from my computer to wma files? Is there a program of some sort? I am using macintosh.

Thanks so much,

Sue

is there any free never any charge or do they all suck your money somehow?

Tried switch .... doesn't convert .wma files to aiff,wav,mp3, etc. on my mac. Says "conversion of the file "***" has failed." Not very helpful. Seems like this is a 50-50 proposition for posters ... maybe there is some issue with how the wma files are created in the first place. Who knows?!?

Switch works great for converting .wma to mp3 in OS 10.4.8. But Switch also opens automatically when I try to open Photoshop and a pile of Photoshop-related files appears in the convert window. The only way I can open Photoshop is to put Switch in the trash. Seems an odd interaction, or maybe I am missing something obvious. Any helpful hints?

I successfully converted DRMed wma songs fom windows vista's sample songs with switch plus hassle free into mp3 on a macpro. The task was easy.

thanks for the help dave! life saver.

Every time I open photoshop, up pops switch. So its not just you John. I have to trash switch to open it. Crazy!

Same deal here w/photoshop. What gives?

If you have Quick Time Pro and Flip4Mac ... you dont need anything else...

Open the .WMA in Quick Time Pro...

Then Click FILE-->Export.

Change it to AIFF format and click export

It should then be playable in iTunes... but if you must go one step further and convert all they way to MP3.... Get switch and use that with no problem (Going from AIFF to MP3)

hi

Hey, the toast thing works great, just imported the file into toast (in audio cd mode) and then used the export option.
Switch also worked but I had a huge problem with it. Photoshop no longer worked. when I tried to open the application, It would get opened by switch, instead of opening alone. Even after completely deleting switch, Photoshop is still hurt.

Thank you for this. Just downloaded some albums that turned were in wma and needed something simple like this.

you guys are on crack, as soon as you download flip4mac it works perfectlly listening to it right now. Thanks so much for working this out its been a great help.

You can use ffmpegx to convert wma to mp3 then mp3 to m4a for my ipod....I use that or switch over to windows and use itunes.

can you help me to have convert wma convert to mp3 ,thank's

Switch seems to be a good program but the file formats it converts to are not as well supported as the file formats it converts from.

What I am looking for is the ability to convert to the audio format amr. Can anyone point me in the right direction as this seems to be supported well on Windows but none existent for Mac.

Cheers, Pete

I have an Olympus voice recorder and an Mac Ibook G4. I would like to bring the voice files up in itunes. What is the best process. Thanks.

MM

i tried using switch and installed the flip4mac as prompted. however, when i went to convert all of my wma files, none of them converted to mp3 and the reasoning was that either i didn't have flip installed (not the case) or that switch was unable to convert any DRMed files. is there a way around this without installing a bunch more apps on my computer? stupid wmp drm... grumble grumble

I'm on Vista. I downloaded SWITCH to convert WMA to MP3. It works, it is easy to use, and I love it. Thank you once again, Dave!!!!

VLC Media Player is a one-stop solution to converting audio files between different formats, including WMA to MP3. VLC is an open source project which means it is free. You can read details about where to get and how to use it at
www.booksalley.com page
http://www.booksalley.com/bAMain/bAlleyT02_Articles.php?ar=20070907A_One-Stop_Solution_for_Converting_Audio_and_Video_Files-by_Vladimir_Ravkin.txt

Yo Bob, I did the toast trick (7.1) mounted cd of silence.. but select all tracks in toast compile window and go > export.... Bingo!! cheers all.

Switch is a badly written app... crashes easily and sometimes disables the windows, the only way out is to force quit from the dock. After trying several times I got it to finally create mp3 files... which had no content. What kind of lousy application is this?

Tried it out! And it works! I'm using a MacBook Pro, and I download that Flip4Mac thing too. Switch & Flip4Mac worked great! Thanks alot!

hi
i have flipformac but i cant play the wma files anyhow.. i'm suppose to have some kind of licence.. is there like a tunebite for mac?

Use the chaining/batch functionality of Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) to convert format xxx to mp3. Works great.

Switch does nothing for me. I tell it to convert, it simply does nothing ececpt put red X's next to my files with no useful info whatsoever.

I have a macbook dowloaded flip4mac & switch..n also get red x's next to the files i am trying to convert wma - mp3..??? :(
I tried changing the file name first.. then trying to convert to mp3..that worked but when i went to play it in itunes.. no sound?? :(( HELP ME PLEASE M GOIN NUTS!

I had already given a try of Switch, before coming across this site. However, even after downloading and installing, when trying to do a test conversion, the first thing it wants to do is connect to some external site. So it requires an internet connection for something ? Is it trying to register, is it using some kind of external binaries ? Is it phoning home ? They don't say. Their documentation stinks. Yeah, it's free, but if this is their try before you buy version, I don't trust them to buy the plus version.

In case anyone thinks no internet connection is weird, I live in the boonies. The only internet connection I have is at work on a Wintel box. The Mac at home is a heavy MacPro, so I download on a Wintel machine and carry files home on flash drives or CD.

YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER TO DRAG AND DROP THE FILES INTO SWITCH. If you haven't already done so, you must also download flip4mac.
Switch requires it.
it's as simple as that for converting wma to mp3

cool!

Great tool...

Have been using it since it came out...

Really better than the other ones out there...

Flavio

FOR EVERYONE THAT HAS A MAC and wants to convert wma or other files to mp3 on their mac:
AND if Switch does not work for you, (see 90% of people above), then use MAX 0.6.1

I JUST used it and it works perfectly! You can specify what format you want the files in (use the preferences) and where you want them. You can have it automatically delete the old files (though don't use that option at first, to make sure it works for you).

I have a mac book, with leopard, and Switch was not working. I used MAX to convert the .ogg and wma audio files to mp3, and i can now play these on itunes.

the link is:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19873#descContainer_link

Its FREEware.

Furthermore, it does all kinds of other things, like rips CDs and converts those to anything you want.

Anyways, it pretty much solves the windows wma -> mac mp3 conversion problem.

Switch Worked great for me! Finally a solution!!!!

Hello Dave,

thanks for the article. I was able to convert wma into aiff/mp3 but two annotations.
The first time I launched Switch it told me that I was using it for quite a long time now and that it was time to go Pro!! Well, NCH, nice try but not very convincing.
Secondly, I could not add wma files (it would not recognize those as music files); instead I had to add the entire folder they were in.

It got the job done but good software is that not.

to add to the above..

burn the audio cd USING TOAST, then import back into itunes.

Thanks for the recommendation Dave! This works beautifully on my MacBook Pro (Intel).

http://homepage.mac.com/major4/

There is a free program... yeah!!!

For all the people that are highlighting other applications that are freeware, note that both the utility Flip4Mac and Switch are also free software, and both can be found directly at VersionTracker.com

I just this morning tested this configuration again on a pristine machine by downloading both, installing both, then with a simple drag and drop,converting about 45 WMA audio files into MP3 files which then easily imported into iTunes and thence onto my iPod.

Thanks the switch program works great and its free.

actually flip4mac is so it knows about wma's, not mp3's.

Switch with Flip4mac worked great on a new MacBook (intel). I have converted 4 albums .wma to .mp3 and am playing in iTunes.

Thanks for the help.

hey, i came across your site looking for some info, and couldn't help but notice your screen cap up there is full of Michael Franks songs!
what an awesome singer/songwriter. it's rare that i come across someone who is into him.

Well, I give up. I have some old WMA files on my Nomad that were from Napster. I've downloaded every conversion piece of software mentioned in this article.

I have had no luck.

Best to you all

Cheers

Thanks. Worked great and even better I already had flip4mac~!

I have converted files from WMA to mp3 with with Switch but can't figure out how to burn the on a CD. Disk Utility progress msg. I get says "unable to burn (file name),mp3 (not recognized)" Can anyone help me out with this?

You clearly haven't tried Max on wma files...it's not an option in the formats.
Thanks for another useless program.
i have Switch, flip for mac, wmp 9 and now max..none work.
Can't drag the files into the audio part of toast either.
Arrggghh computers!

Already had flip4mac and Switch worked wonderfully. Converted 100+ songs. Then detected w/o problems by Itunes.

If dragging to audio-cd burning Toast does not work, for some wma files they become 2 sec long or whatsoever
Simply burn them into a AUDIO-DVD DISK IMAGE
this takes a little longer, that means it actually converts
when done, mount it, (right mouse button,"MOUNT IT") and then it will automatically open in itunes where you can import the files in any format you like.

moreeazy - making life more eazy

This is the only thing I have found works on a mac. I officially love you. Eight times.

Thanks to you and google...problem solved :)

Hi, Dave.
Thank you SO much for this article! I had been trying to figure out a way to convert my .wma file into an .mp3 for the past 45 minutes without upgrading to Quicktime Pro and downloading Switch worked great! Thank you SOOO MUCH!! Seriously, you don't know how grateful I am right now; I really wanted this song in my iTunes library, and now it is, thanks to you!!!!!!!

Thanks, very much, very useful information, it did sort out my problem!

Switch is very useful ... thank you very much.

Hi Dave. I have 940 cd's on a windows xp external drive. I am thinking about getting a Mac mini. Is there a way I can keep it in WMA format as I want to play it through a nice pa? I don't want the files compressed converting to mp3 as you can hear the difference in a nice sound system.
Thanks, Rick

I was searching for an app to do this and nearly tore my hair
out on the search most of the time switch does the trick for me
but i had 2 20mb files I wanted to put on my ipod

and none of the above worked for me
not even 2 minutes ago I found an app
and converted my my files

at last

heres the link

theres a free trial but that was enough to do
the job for me as I only had 2 small files to convert

if all else fails give it a go

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/easywma.html

good luck

Gratitude to all and kudos to Dave. I finally found my answer at the end of this thread.

This comment is just to make this post easier to find for new readers via Google:

How to convert .wma files to .mp3 convert audio files wma to mp3 itunes conversion convertor app to convert wma to mp3 mac os x osx leopard apple mac

I have Imac osx leopard fully updated. Flip4mac installed. Switch worked for me to convert wma files into mp3 for me, but only the title of the track survived into itunes. Have not tried easywma.

Super. Spot on. Thanks!

For free you have
Isquint and mpeg streamclip

If you want to pay there is
quicktime pro and audio converter for mac, If you are interested in it, here is a guide about how to download and use it
http://blog.bitcomet.com/post/103259/

thank you i have been trying to find a program i did'nt have to pay for, that would do this forever! and switch is free and worked great. thank you

thanks so much for the recommendation for switch...It works great.

Thanks a lot for the advice, this works perfectly and simply.

Im in search of a converter to convert wma to mp3 for pc.the songs i have downloaded arent recognized by my player.car audio.mp3 or sd memory card .so im trying to convert it to make it all work

Thanks for this great resource! I was searching different sites and they wanted to charge me for the very thing Switch does for free. I appreciate it!

Marilyn

thanks this Switch program is great

This thing stinks. Every time I try to use it it tells me I have to download the "Flip 4 Mac" application from windows which I already have and never worked that great in the first place. After trying every which way to use it and getting the same stupid message I downloaded it again to see if it was an update of some kind. After doing so I still get the same message to download the same application! What is going on here? The only thing I can figure is that this does not work with Snow Leopard which I just upgraded to. (It seems to have killed a few after market applications I have including Photoshop.)

This is absolutely infuriating. I don't know why Mac does not have some sort of converter built into iTunes to convert these files automatically.

Avoid this program if you are running anything newer than three years old.

Please guys i need qualified solid information- the remarks upfront do not fit. flip 4mac doesnt help to convert and switch (without the plus+) does not accept wma files - its as simpel as that. so what is the solution- i want a free software to convert wma files (music from friends with windnows pcs) to run on my mac os x 10.4.11 ppc and my ipod
please! i need only one true tip!
itunes refuses to accept wma- so what can i do

hey Dave.

i downloaded Switch and it works fine.
However with the WMA files im currently trying to convert into mp3, the program says i need flip4mac. ive downloaded and installed and the files still wont convert... is there something im missing?

I tried both the basic and the pro versions of Switch on my Mac with OS 10.5 and already had Flip4Mac installed but could not make it work