Convert 3GP to WEBA — Free Online Tool
Convert 3GP mobile video files to WEBA audio format, extracting and re-encoding the audio track using the Opus codec — ideal for repurposing mobile-recorded content for modern web audio playback. The video stream is discarded entirely, and the audio is transcoded from AAC or AMR (common in 3GP) to Opus, delivering excellent quality at low bitrates in a browser-native container.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
3GP is a video container originally designed for 3G mobile phones, typically carrying H.264 or MPEG-4 video alongside AAC or AMR audio. WEBA is an audio-only WebM container, so during this conversion the video stream is completely dropped using the -vn flag. The audio track — whatever codec it was encoded in within the 3GP file — is decoded and then re-encoded as Opus at 128k bitrate using libopus. Opus is a modern, highly efficient lossy codec standardized by the IETF, and it significantly outperforms older codecs like AMR-NB (common in early 3GP files) at any given bitrate. The result is a lightweight .weba file that plays natively in all modern browsers without plugins.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg program — the open-source multimedia processing engine that handles decoding the 3GP container and its streams, transcoding the audio, and muxing the output into WEBA format. |
-i input.3gp
|
Specifies the input file — a 3GP container from a mobile device, which may contain H.264 or MPEG-4 video and AAC or AMR audio tracks that FFmpeg will decode for processing. |
-c:a libopus
|
Sets the audio encoder to libopus, which re-encodes whatever audio codec was in the 3GP file (AAC, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, etc.) into the modern Opus format — the native codec of the WEBA container and of WebRTC. |
-b:a 128k
|
Targets an audio bitrate of 128 kilobits per second for the Opus encoder — a good balance of file size and quality for general audio content extracted from 3GP files, and far higher than the typical bitrates used in the original 3GP audio stream. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely, instructing FFmpeg to skip the video stream from the 3GP input. This is required because WEBA is an audio-only format and cannot contain video tracks — the flag ensures no attempt is made to include the 3GP's video data. |
output.weba
|
The output filename with the .weba extension, which signals to FFmpeg that the output should be muxed into a WebM container configured for audio-only content using the Opus codec. |
Common Use Cases
- Extract voice memos or phone call recordings captured on older Android devices as 3GP files and convert them to WEBA for embedding directly in a web page using an HTML5 audio element
- Strip the audio from a 3GP video clip recorded on a feature phone or early smartphone to create a podcast segment or audio sample without needing the video
- Convert a collection of 3GP field recordings from a mobile journalism project into WEBA files for a web-based audio archive, taking advantage of Opus's superior compression over the original AMR audio
- Repurpose 3GP video testimonials or interviews — captured on low-end devices — as WEBA audio files for use in a web documentary or interactive story where only the audio is needed
- Prepare mobile-recorded 3GP audio content for a WebRTC or browser-based audio application, since Opus is the native codec used by WebRTC and WEBA provides maximum compatibility
- Reduce file size for archiving 3GP recordings that contain important audio but no meaningful visual content, since WEBA with Opus at 128k is far smaller than the original 3GP with its video stream
Frequently Asked Questions
There will be some generation loss since the audio is decoded from its original codec (often AAC or AMR in 3GP) and re-encoded as Opus — this is a lossy-to-lossy transcode. However, Opus at 128k is generally considered transparent or near-transparent for most content, and it substantially outperforms AMR-NB (common in older 3GP files) in perceptual quality at equivalent or lower bitrates. If your 3GP file used AAC at a low bitrate like 32k, the Opus output at 128k will actually sound noticeably better.
This is intentional. WEBA is an audio-only container format — it is a WebM file restricted to audio tracks. The -vn flag explicitly instructs FFmpeg to discard the video stream from the 3GP input. If you need to keep the video, you should convert to a format like WebM or MP4 instead. WEBA is specifically for audio-only web delivery.
AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) audio is common in older 3GP files from feature phones and early smartphones. FFmpeg will automatically decode the AMR stream and re-encode it to Opus — you don't need to do anything different. The quality improvement going from narrow-band AMR (AMR-NB, typically 4.75–12.2 kbps) to Opus at 128k will be dramatic, since AMR-NB was optimized only for voice telephony and sounds quite degraded on music or ambient audio.
Replace the value after -b:a in the command. For example, use -b:a 64k for a smaller file suitable for voice-only content, or -b:a 192k for higher fidelity audio. Opus is remarkably efficient — 64k Opus typically sounds better than 128k MP3 for most content. For speech extracted from 3GP phone recordings, 64k is usually more than sufficient. For music, 128k or higher is recommended.
Yes, using a shell loop on your desktop. On Linux or macOS, run: for f in *.3gp; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a libopus -b:a 128k -vn "${f%.3gp}.weba"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.3gp) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a libopus -b:a 128k -vn "%~nf.weba". The browser-based tool processes one file at a time, so the command line approach is recommended for batch jobs or files over 1GB.
WEBA files are supported in all major Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera) and Firefox, which together cover the vast majority of web users. Safari has historically had limited WebM/Opus support, though macOS Ventura and iOS 16+ added basic Opus support. If cross-browser compatibility including older Safari versions is critical, consider converting to a format using AAC instead. For modern web applications and PWAs, WEBA with Opus is an excellent choice due to its low latency and high compression efficiency.
Technical Notes
3GP files can vary considerably in their audio codec depending on the device and era: older feature phones typically used AMR-NB or AMR-WB, while 3GP files from smartphones more commonly contain AAC-LC. FFmpeg handles both transparently during this conversion. The WEBA output uses libopus, which implements the IETF Opus codec (RFC 6716) — a hybrid codec combining SILK (speech) and CELT (music/general audio) modes that adapts internally based on content type. Metadata handling is limited in this conversion: basic tags like title or artist may be carried over if present in the 3GP container, but 3GP files from mobile devices rarely contain rich metadata. Chapter markers and subtitle tracks are not present in either format. Since WEBA is audio-only, no video metadata, thumbnails, or secondary audio tracks from the 3GP source are preserved. The -vn flag is non-negotiable here — WebM's audio-only profile (WEBA) cannot contain a video stream by definition. File sizes will typically be significantly smaller than the original 3GP, since the video stream (even at low mobile quality) is usually the largest component of a 3GP file.