Convert 3GPP to FLAC — Free Online Tool
Convert 3GPP mobile video files to FLAC lossless audio, extracting the AAC or MP3 audio track and re-encoding it into a bit-perfect, compressed FLAC file. Ideal for archiving audio captured on older mobile devices without any further quality degradation.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
Drop your 3GPP file here
or click to browse
Free — no uploads, no signups. Your files never leave your browser.
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
3GPP files are multimedia containers built for 3G mobile devices, typically carrying video encoded in H.264 and audio encoded in AAC (or occasionally MP3). Since FLAC is a purely audio format, the video stream is discarded entirely during this conversion. The audio track — almost always AAC in a 3GPP file — is decoded to raw PCM and then re-encoded using the FLAC codec with lossless compression. This means the FLAC output is a perfect reconstruction of the decoded audio signal, but because the original 3GPP audio was lossy AAC, the FLAC file preserves exactly what AAC captured — not the original pre-encoding audio. No additional quality is lost in the 3GP-to-FLAC step itself.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool. In this browser-based tool, FFmpeg runs locally via WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) — your 3GPP file never leaves your device. |
-i input.3gp
|
Specifies the input 3GPP file. FFmpeg reads the container and identifies the available streams — typically an H.264 video track and an AAC audio track from a mobile device. |
-c:a flac
|
Sets the audio codec to FLAC, instructing FFmpeg to decode the 3GPP file's AAC audio to raw PCM and then re-encode it using the lossless FLAC codec. |
-compression_level 5
|
Sets FLAC's compression effort to level 5 (the default midpoint on a 0–8 scale). This balances encoding speed against output file size without any effect on audio quality — FLAC is always lossless regardless of this setting. |
output.flac
|
Defines the output filename with a .flac extension. The video stream from the 3GPP file is automatically dropped because FLAC is an audio-only format, so no explicit video discard flag is needed. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting voice memos or phone call recordings saved as 3GPP files on Android devices to archive them in a lossless format for long-term storage
- Pulling audio from old 3G-era mobile video clips to use as source material in a DAW, where FLAC's lossless nature ensures the editor is working with the best possible version of the captured audio
- Archiving field recordings or interviews recorded on older Nokia or Sony Ericsson handsets that saved clips as .3gp, converting them to FLAC for a music or journalism archive
- Converting 3GPP ringtone recordings or ambient sound captures to FLAC so they can be tagged with rich metadata (artist, album, date) using tools like MusicBrainz Picard
- Preparing 3GPP audio for transcription services that require uncompressed or lossless input formats for maximum accuracy
- Stripping the video from 3GPP multimedia messages (MMS attachments) to retain only the audio in a universally archivable format
Frequently Asked Questions
No — the FLAC output will sound identical to the audio in the 3GPP file, not better. The 3GPP container stores audio as lossy AAC (typically at low bitrates like 64k or below, suited for 3G mobile networks), and that lossy compression has already permanently removed some audio data. FLAC re-encodes the decoded PCM of that AAC stream with lossless compression, so it perfectly preserves whatever the AAC codec captured, without any further degradation. Think of it as freezing the current quality in place, not restoring it.
3GPP files use AAC audio at very low bitrates (often 32k–64k) specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained 3G networks, making them extremely compact. FLAC uses lossless compression, which although efficient, must store enough data to reconstruct every sample exactly — resulting in files that are typically 3–8x larger than the AAC source. The size increase reflects the removal of AAC's lossy compression, not an addition of quality data.
Metadata preservation depends on what tags exist in the 3GPP file. 3GPP containers support a limited set of metadata atoms (title, author, date), and FFmpeg will attempt to map these to FLAC's Vorbis Comment tags during conversion. However, mobile-recorded 3GPP files often contain minimal or no metadata beyond technical stream info. After conversion, you can freely add rich FLAC metadata — artist, album, genre, replay gain values — using a tag editor, which is one of FLAC's strengths over the 3GPP format.
The video stream — typically H.264 in a 3GPP file — is completely discarded. The FFmpeg command targets only the audio track for extraction and re-encoding into FLAC. Since FLAC is a pure audio format with no video container capability, there is no way to preserve the video in this output. If you need to keep the video, you would need to convert to a different output format like MP4 or MKV instead.
Adjust the value after -compression_level in the command. The range is 0 (fastest encoding, largest file) to 8 (slowest encoding, smallest file), with 5 as the default and a good balance. For example, use -compression_level 8 for the most compact FLAC file, or -compression_level 0 if you need the fastest possible conversion. Unlike lossy formats, changing this value never affects audio quality — only encoding speed and file size differ.
Yes. In a terminal, you can use a shell loop to process multiple files. On Linux or macOS, run: for f in *.3gp; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a flac -compression_level 5 "${f%.3gp}.flac"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.3gp) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a flac -compression_level 5 "%~nf.flac". This is especially useful for archiving a collection of old mobile recordings in one go, and works on files of any size since you're running FFmpeg locally.
Technical Notes
3GPP files captured on mobile devices almost universally use AAC-LC audio at low bitrates (32k–64k is typical for 3G-era devices), though some devices encode with libmp3lame instead. FFmpeg automatically detects whichever audio codec is present and decodes it to PCM before re-encoding to FLAC, so no manual codec selection is needed for the input. The -compression_level parameter is unique to FLAC among common audio formats — it controls only the complexity of the compression algorithm (FLAC uses different subframe types and LPC order at higher levels), never the audio fidelity. The output is always bit-for-bit lossless regardless of the compression level chosen. FLAC supports sample rates from 1 Hz to 655,350 Hz and bit depths of 4 to 32 bits, so even unusual 3GPP audio configurations (e.g., 8 kHz narrowband voice audio from early 3G voice recordings) are handled correctly. One known limitation: 3GPP files with multiple audio tracks will have only the first (default) audio stream extracted, since FLAC does not support multiple audio tracks in a single file.