FLAC to MP3
Get a lossless library onto a device that will not take FLAC.
Your file
Drop a file here, or click to choose
It stays on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Settings
This is the one case for 320 kbps
Encoding from a lossless source is where a high bitrate genuinely pays, because there are no prior compression artefacts to preserve. 320 kbps is set as the default here for exactly that reason. 256 is very close and about 20% smaller.
Keep the FLAC files. They are your masters, and any future conversion should start from them rather than from the MP3.
What FLAC actually is
FLAC is lossless compression, which is a genuinely different thing from the lossy compression MP3 does. It works like a zip file for audio: the samples are packed more efficiently and unpacked exactly, bit for bit, when played. A FLAC is typically half the size of the WAV it came from and contains precisely the same audio. Nothing has been thrown away, which is why it is the format serious archives and most download stores use, and why it is the right thing to keep.
MP3 is the opposite trade. It achieves its size by deciding what you will not miss and removing it permanently.
The sizes involved
A four minute track runs to roughly 40 MB as WAV, 20 to 25 MB as FLAC, and about 9 MB as a 320 kbps MP3. Across an album that is the difference between 250 MB and 90 MB, and across a library of a thousand tracks it is the difference between something that fits on a phone and something that does not. That is the whole reason this conversion exists; nothing about it is an improvement in quality.
Where FLAC will not play
Support has improved a great deal and is still uneven. Android, VLC, Plex, most modern car systems and Windows handle FLAC fine. Apple's own ecosystem does not: iTunes and the Music app will not import it, so an iPhone library needs either MP3 or Apple Lossless. A great many older MP3 players, older car head units, Bluetooth speakers with built-in playback, gym equipment and cheap DAPs will not read it either. Those are the destinations that make this worth doing.
320, or 256
320 kbps is set as the default here deliberately, because encoding from a lossless source is the one case where the top bitrate genuinely earns its space. There are no prior compression artefacts being faithfully preserved; the encoder is working from the real recording and the extra bits go into detail that was really there.
256 kbps is very close and about 20% smaller, and on most equipment in most rooms nobody will identify which is which. If space is the reason you are converting, 256 is the better trade. Below about 192 kbps from a lossless source you start giving away the advantage you paid for by keeping FLAC in the first place.
Common questions
Will I hear the difference?
On ordinary headphones in ordinary rooms, almost certainly not at 320 kbps. On good equipment in a quiet room, some people can on some material.
How much smaller is MP3?
Roughly a third the size of FLAC, which is itself about half the size of WAV.