Convert 3GPP to WEBA — Free Online Tool
Convert 3GPP video files to WEBA audio by extracting and re-encoding the audio stream to Opus format, discarding the video entirely. This is ideal for pulling audio from mobile-captured 3GPP clips and repurposing it for web playback, where Opus delivers superior compression efficiency over the AAC audio typically found inside 3GPP files.
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FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
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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 designed for 3G mobile networks, typically holding H.264 video and AAC audio. During this conversion, FFmpeg strips the video stream entirely using the -vn flag and extracts only the audio track. That audio — usually AAC encoded at low bitrates suited for mobile — is then re-encoded from scratch into Opus using the libopus encoder, packaged inside a WEBA (audio-only WebM) container. This is a full transcode of the audio, not a copy: AAC and Opus are different codecs with different compression models, so the audio is decoded to PCM and re-encoded to Opus at the target bitrate. Opus at 128k typically sounds noticeably better than the low-bitrate AAC commonly found in 3GPP files from older mobile devices.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg command-line tool. In this browser-based tool, FFmpeg runs locally via WebAssembly (ffmpeg.wasm) — no files leave your device. The same command runs identically on a desktop FFmpeg installation for files over 1GB. |
-i input.3gp
|
Specifies the input file — a 3GPP container (.3gp) typically containing H.264 video and AAC audio as captured by a mobile device on a 3G network. |
-c:a libopus
|
Sets the audio codec to libopus, re-encoding the AAC audio from the 3GPP file into the Opus format. Opus is a modern, royalty-free codec that outperforms AAC at low-to-mid bitrates and is natively supported in all modern browsers. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the target audio bitrate to 128 kilobits per second for the Opus output. At 128k, Opus produces transparent or near-transparent quality for most audio content — significantly better than the low-bitrate AAC typically found in 3GPP mobile recordings. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely, stripping the H.264 (or MJPEG) video stream from the 3GPP file. This is necessary because WEBA is an audio-only container and does not support video streams. |
output.weba
|
Defines the output filename with the .weba extension, which tells FFmpeg to write an audio-only WebM container. WEBA is the standard extension for WebM files containing only Opus or Vorbis audio, intended for direct playback in web browsers via the HTML5 audio element. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting a voice memo or field recording captured on an older Android phone in 3GPP format and converting it to WEBA for embedding in a web page with the HTML5 audio element
- Pulling the audio from a 3GPP video clip sent via MMS or WhatsApp from a legacy mobile device to use as a short sound clip in a web project
- Archiving the spoken commentary from 3GPP video footage in a smaller, browser-native audio format without retaining the low-resolution mobile video
- Preparing audio captured from a 3G-era mobile phone interview for streaming on a web platform that prefers Opus-encoded WebM audio for bandwidth efficiency
- Stripping the audio track from a 3GPP screen recording or tutorial video to create a podcast-style audio file optimized for web delivery
- Converting a collection of old 3GPP ringtone or audio message files into modern Opus/WEBA format for use in a web app or browser-based media player
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, some generation loss is unavoidable because this conversion decodes the AAC audio in the 3GPP file and re-encodes it to Opus — a lossy-to-lossy transcode. However, because AAC in 3GPP files is often encoded at very low bitrates (32–64k is common for mobile recordings), re-encoding to Opus at 128k can actually sound equal or better than the original, since Opus is a more efficient modern codec. The weakest link is the quality of the audio that was originally captured on the mobile device.
WEBA is an audio-only container format — a WebM file restricted to audio streams. The -vn flag in the FFmpeg command explicitly drops the video stream during conversion. This is intentional: WEBA files are not designed to hold video, and the typical use case for this conversion is web audio playback where the low-resolution mobile video from a 3GPP file is not needed.
Opus is natively supported in all modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari 17+) and offers better audio quality per kilobit than AAC, especially at lower bitrates. AAC in a 3GPP container is not directly playable by most web browsers without conversion. Re-encoding to Opus in a WEBA container gives you a file that plays inline in the browser via the HTML5 audio element without any plugins or re-wrapping.
Replace the 128k value after -b:a with your desired bitrate. For voice recordings from 3GPP files, 64k Opus is excellent and keeps file sizes very small. For music or higher-fidelity audio, 192k or 256k will improve quality. For example: ffmpeg -i input.3gp -c:a libopus -b:a 64k -vn output.weba. Opus is particularly efficient at low bitrates, so 64k often sounds comparable to 128k AAC.
Yes, WEBA supports both Opus and Vorbis audio. To use Vorbis, replace -c:a libopus with -c:a libvorbis in the FFmpeg command. However, libopus is generally recommended: Opus was designed to supersede Vorbis and delivers better quality at equivalent bitrates, particularly at the low end where 3GPP audio sources typically live. Both are supported in modern browsers.
In a Unix shell (Linux/macOS), you can loop over all 3GPP files in a directory: 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". This is especially useful for bulk-converting a folder of old mobile recordings.
Technical Notes
3GPP files from mobile devices often contain AAC-LC audio encoded at conservative bitrates (32–96k) to minimize file size for transmission over 3G networks. The audio sample rate is also frequently 8kHz or 16kHz for voice recordings, compared to the 48kHz standard used by Opus. FFmpeg's libopus encoder automatically handles sample rate conversion upward when necessary, though no new frequency information is created — the ceiling of the original recording's quality is a hard limit. Metadata from the 3GPP container (title, artist, creation date) is generally not preserved in the WEBA output because WebM's metadata tagging conventions differ significantly from the MP4-derived atom structure used in 3GPP. The -vn flag is required because WebM/WEBA does not support the H.264 video codec commonly found in 3GPP files, and omitting it would cause FFmpeg to error on the video stream. The resulting WEBA file is a fully valid WebM container and can be renamed to .webm if broader toolchain compatibility is needed, though audio-only playback behavior remains identical.