Extract Audio from 3G2 to WMA — Free Online Tool
Extract audio from 3G2 mobile video files and convert it to WMA format using the wmav2 codec — entirely in your browser. This is especially useful for recovering audio from legacy CDMA mobile recordings and delivering it in a format natively compatible with Windows Media Player and Microsoft ecosystems.
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FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
Drop your 3G2 file here
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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
3G2 files typically contain AAC or MP3 audio paired with H.264 video, packaged in a container derived from the MPEG-4 file format and designed for CDMA mobile networks. During this conversion, FFmpeg discards the video stream entirely using the -vn flag, then decodes the existing audio stream (usually AAC) and re-encodes it into WMA using Microsoft's wmav2 codec at 128k bitrate. Because AAC and WMA are both lossy codecs with incompatible encoding formats, a full decode-and-re-encode cycle is unavoidable — the audio is decompressed from AAC and recompressed into WMA. This means there is a small but measurable generational quality loss compared to the original recording, which is a normal tradeoff when converting between two lossy formats.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg tool, which is running here as a WebAssembly (FFmpeg.wasm) instance entirely inside your browser — no data leaves your machine during processing. |
-i input.3g2
|
Specifies the input file in 3G2 format — the CDMA-era mobile container that typically holds H.264 video alongside AAC audio. FFmpeg automatically detects the container and its streams. |
-vn
|
Disables video output entirely, telling FFmpeg to ignore the H.264 (or MJPEG) video stream in the 3G2 file. This ensures the output is a pure audio-only WMA file with no video track. |
-c:a wmav2
|
Sets the audio encoder to wmav2, Microsoft's second-generation Windows Media Audio codec. This re-encodes the decoded AAC audio from the 3G2 source into WMA format, which is natively playable in Windows Media Player and across the Microsoft device ecosystem. |
-b:a 128k
|
Sets the WMA audio output bitrate to 128 kilobits per second. This is a balanced default that provides good clarity for both voice and music content extracted from mobile 3G2 recordings without producing an unnecessarily large file. |
output.wma
|
Defines the output filename and its .wma extension, which tells FFmpeg to write the encoded audio into an ASF (Advanced Systems Format) container — the proprietary Microsoft wrapper used by all WMA files. |
Common Use Cases
- Recovering voice memos or audio clips from old CDMA-era phones (e.g., Verizon or Sprint devices) that saved recordings as 3G2 files, and importing them into Windows-based audio software that prefers WMA
- Converting 3G2 field recordings made on legacy mobile devices into WMA files for archiving in a Windows Media Player library or SharePoint document store
- Stripping audio from 3G2 video clips captured on older mobile handsets to create WMA audio files compatible with Windows-centric digital signage or kiosk systems
- Extracting spoken-word content or interviews recorded as 3G2 on CDMA devices and delivering them to stakeholders as WMA files for playback in corporate Windows environments
- Preparing audio from 3G2 mobile video for use in Windows Movie Maker or legacy Microsoft editing tools that work most reliably with WMA audio tracks
- Archiving audio from 3G2 multimedia messages (MMS) received on older CDMA handsets into a WMA format suitable for long-term storage on Windows file servers
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, there will be a small quality reduction. Both AAC (used in 3G2) and WMA (wmav2) are lossy codecs, so converting between them requires fully decoding the AAC audio and re-encoding it as WMA — a process sometimes called 'generational loss.' At the default 128k bitrate, the result is generally indistinguishable for voice recordings and acceptable for music, but if the original 3G2 was already encoded at a very low mobile bitrate (e.g., 64k AAC), the output quality ceiling is already limited before the conversion begins.
wmav2 is the second-generation Windows Media Audio codec and produces noticeably better audio quality than wmav1 at the same bitrate, particularly in the mid and high frequencies. wmav1 is an older codec included mainly for compatibility with very early Windows Media Player versions. Unless you specifically need to support Windows 95-era software, wmav2 is the right choice and is what virtually all modern Windows applications expect when opening a .wma file.
Replace the -b:a 128k value with a higher bitrate supported by the WMA format, such as 192k, 256k, or 320k. For example: ffmpeg -i input.3g2 -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 192k output.wma. Keep in mind that increasing the bitrate beyond the quality ceiling of the original 3G2 source will not recover detail that was lost during the original mobile encoding — it will only produce a larger file. For most 3G2 voice recordings, 128k is already more than sufficient.
Basic metadata such as title and artist that exists in the 3G2 container may be carried over to the WMA file by FFmpeg during conversion, since WMA supports standard metadata tags. However, 3G2 files from mobile devices often contain minimal or no user-facing metadata, so there may be little to transfer. If metadata preservation is critical, you can verify what tags exist beforehand using ffprobe input.3g2 and manually set them in the output using FFmpeg's -metadata flag.
Yes. On Linux or macOS, you can use a shell loop: for f in *.3g2; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "${f%.3g2}.wma"; done. On Windows Command Prompt, use: for %f in (*.3g2) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -vn -c:a wmav2 -b:a 128k "%~nf.wma". This is particularly useful when dealing with a folder of legacy CDMA mobile recordings that all need to be extracted and converted to WMA in bulk. The browser-based tool on this page processes one file at a time, so the FFmpeg command is the recommended approach for batch jobs.
Yes. WMA files encoded with wmav2 at standard bitrates like 128k are natively supported across the Microsoft device ecosystem, including Xbox consoles, Surface tablets running Windows, Windows Phone (legacy), and any version of Windows Media Player from version 7 onward. The wmav2 codec is Microsoft's own standard and receives first-class support in all Microsoft media stacks, making this conversion a reliable path for delivering audio within a Windows-centric environment.
Technical Notes
3G2 is a lightweight MPEG-4-derived container standardized by 3GPP2 for CDMA mobile networks (used by carriers like Verizon and Sprint). Its audio track is almost always AAC, though some devices used MP3 (libmp3lame). WMA (.wma) files use Microsoft's proprietary wmav2 codec inside an ASF (Advanced Systems Format) container — not a standard open container like MP4 or Ogg. FFmpeg's wmav2 encoder is a clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft's codec and produces files fully compatible with Windows Media Player and DirectShow-based applications. One known limitation is that WMA does not support multi-channel audio beyond stereo in standard wmav2 mode — if your 3G2 source somehow contains surround audio (rare on mobile devices), it will be downmixed to stereo. The -vn flag ensures zero video data enters the output, keeping the WMA file as a pure audio file. WMA also supports DRM (Digital Rights Management), but FFmpeg does not apply DRM during encoding, so the output file will be DRM-free regardless of the source.