How to convert .flac files to .mp3 using OS X

July 15th, 2006 by Ross McKillop | Print This Post Print This Post
Mac iPod/iPhone

You’ve downloaded a show or two from http://bt.etree.org and now you want to convert the .flac files to .mp3 to take with you on your iPod or MP3 player. This tutorial will walk you through the steps to do just that, using OS X. Read on ..

First things first, make sure you’ve downloaded and installed xACT and iTunes, both of which are free.

There are two steps in converting your .flac files to .mp3. The first is to decode the .flac’s into .wav files. After that’s done, you’ll encode the .wav files into .mp3’s.

Decoding .flac files with xACT
Encoding .wav files with iTunes

Decoding .flac files with xACT

  1. Launch xACT and select the decode tab

  2. Click the add button

  3. Navigate to the .flac files you want to decode, select them all, and then click Add files


    4. Click to enlarge

  4. Now you’ll need to select the output - I use and suggest .wav. Click Decode when you’re ready


    5. Click to enlarge

  5. You’ll be prompted to choose a location to save the output files. Select the same folder where the .flac files are located and then click Choose


    6. Click to enlarge

  6. Go put on a pot of coffee. The decoding process only takes a few minutes.

  7. When it’s completed you’ll be back at the decode screen but there won’t be any files in the decode list. Feel free to close xACT now.

Encoding .wav files with iTunes

  1. Open up iTunes and select iTunes from the top menu, and then Preferences… from the drop-down list

  2. Select the Advanced tab from the top menu, and then Importing from the lower menu


    3. Click to enlarge

  3. From the Import Using: list, select MP3 Encoder

  4. From the Setting: list, select your quality preference. I happen to have a lot of space on my portable MP3 player, so I opt for Higher Quality (192 kbps)

  5. It also annoys me to have songs playing while they’re importing, so I disable that feature by removing the check from the box labeled Play songs while importing. This is entirely optional. Click OK to return to iTunes.

  6. Now select File from the top menu, and then Add to Library… from the drop-down list

  7. Navigate to the folder where you saved all of the .wav files from xACT, select that folder, and then click Choose


    8. Click to enlarge

  8. iTunes will now import all of the .wav’s into iTunes. Find all of the newly added files (usually at the bottom of your iTunes list, but it depends on how you sort your music) and select them all. Once they’re all highlighted, right-click (ctrl-click for you one-button folks) on any of the selected songs and choose Convert Selection to MP3 from the pop-up menu.

  9. Remember that pot of coffee you put on while the .flac files were decoding? Now’s the time to get a cup. While iTunes is encoding your MP3s, a status indicator will appear in the left window (see image below). Depending on how “fast” your mac is (processor speed, memory etc) and how many files you’re encoding, this step can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.

  10. Once all of the files have been encoded, iTunes will probably beep to get your attention. Before you start listening to your music, now’s a good time to get rid of the .wav files, since they’re no longer needed. You should notice that ever other track in iTunes is highlighted. These are the .wav files - get them out of iTunes by clicking the delete key on your keyboard. If iTunes asks if you want to delete the files as well as remove them from iTunes, feel free to do so (you should still have the source .flac files if you ever need an uncompressed version again)

  11. That’s it! You’re done. You can now tag the files in iTunes, transfer them to your iPod etc. If you need to get at the MP3s, they will likely be located in Mac Hard Drive:Users:you:Music:iTunes:iTunes Music:

Related content: How to convert .shn files to .mp3 using OSX

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  1. 76 Responses to “How to convert .flac files to .mp3 using OS X”

  2. By Hans on Sep 30, 2006 | Reply

    no

  3. By Ross on Sep 30, 2006 | Reply

    No?

  4. By Naga on Oct 17, 2006 | Reply

    YOU ROCK, MAN. THANK YOU.

  5. By Rob on Nov 29, 2006 | Reply

    Too complicated, isn’t it better to pay $20 for a professional converter that will convert flac to mp3 directly in three clicks? I use Total Audio Converter for that task.

  6. By scaven7 on Jan 13, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks so much! USEFUL!!!

  7. By Kate on Jan 26, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you - very helpful!

  8. By marcel on Feb 21, 2007 | Reply

    check out
    http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21952 for xACT

  9. By Kyle on Feb 22, 2007 | Reply

    Holy crap, thankyou so much for this info. I am very lucky to have found it. All I wanted to do is get a f—in mp3 ringtone and I have put 5+ hours into it. Now with Audacity and this little bit on itunes converting it is now possible. Thats the Apple drawback, no software. Yeah I couldn’t even find what I wanted even if I pay. Rediculous.

    Well now I can make my own ringtones out of my purchased music, thanks a lot.

    Oh, no I dont want to pay! (coming form someone in college!)

  10. By etch on Mar 11, 2007 | Reply

    MASSIVE THANKS MAN, much appreciated for that, sooooooooo useful…

  11. By Andy on Mar 23, 2007 | Reply

    Nicely presented tutorial. I’d like to add to this thread that anyone that knows how to open up a terminal on Mac OS X take a look at this script:

    http://robinbowes.com/projects/flac2mp3

    It’s simple really, you run the script, wait a bit..

    12 flac files found. Sorting…done.
    Processing “01-Futuresex,Lovesound.flac”
    Processing “02-Sexyback.flac”
    Processing “03-Sexy Ladies.flac”
    etc, etc..

    then find you have an iPod friendly directory of mp3’s. Apart from the lack of interaction it also maintains the metadata tags which I’d consider almost essential. The xAct/iTunes method won’t maintain tags as I understand it.

    Horses for courses and all that.

    Andy

  12. By mitchjet on Apr 2, 2007 | Reply

    thank you so much for this simple and effective explanation!

    i was devastated when, for some reason, my computer took a WHOLE day to download some files, then i opened it, and they were .flac files, a format i’d NEVER heard of!

    thankyou for making it possible for me to hear them on my iPod now!

  13. By Daylan on Apr 11, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks man! You’re my hero

  14. By fifi on Apr 17, 2007 | Reply

    It would be easier to use a program named NoteBurner. The program works with iTunes, Windows Media Player and Realone. You can convert all protected or unprotected music to plain mp3, wam or wav easily.

  15. By Johanna on May 2, 2007 | Reply

    Awesome instructions - thanks so much!

  16. By Charly on May 3, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks so much, you’ve made my day!

  17. By Zack on May 12, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you sooooooo much. You’re a Godsend.

  18. By Mauricio Ulloa on May 18, 2007 | Reply

    Very very helpfull, it is just a matter of patience.
    Thank you very much

  19. By Christophe diezma on May 18, 2007 | Reply

    Hey you, thanks so much for the info .. I have had all these Bach music on .flac that I have not been able to play on my iPod .. this did it! YOU ARE THE MAN !

  20. By Tom on May 20, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you. Not that fast but efficient :)

  21. By Raph on May 21, 2007 | Reply

    Nice tutorial, but it’s a bit complicated, you can use a freeware called Max which can convert nearly any audio format to another directly:

    Max Audio Ripper Tutorial

  22. By mystic on May 21, 2007 | Reply

    thank yo so much. Such a great tutorial … really took you thru each step and even explaining how long each step would take, the best one I’ve ever come across. Thank you!

  23. By Andrea on Jun 9, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks so much. These directions were perfect and easy to follow. You are a genius! I bookmarked this page

    Andrea
    mom to Estee Li Li
    the Sweetest little girl in all of China

  24. By Rich on Jul 21, 2007 | Reply

    This prog and step by step has been invaluable to me. I found the entire process to be very straightforward. Great work! Thank you very much.

  25. By Jon on Aug 3, 2007 | Reply

    Cracking Tutorial

    Keep up the good work (wish there were more tutorials on the web like this one, 5 minute job)

    Cheers John

  26. By mike on Aug 9, 2007 | Reply

    I know how to convert regular flac files, but flac16 files to not convert on xact on my macbook. I have had a John Mayer show sitting on my desktop for months and have been unable to convert it. Any help would be great. Thanks a lot.

  27. By Gary D on Aug 30, 2007 | Reply

    I downloaded the software v.1.59 and followed the step by step guide but the .flac files are not decoding, I have been promted by an error and the software won’t decode even when I tick the box go bypass the error!

    error message below:

    > /Users/garyjamesdickson/Documents/Azureus Downloads/Lou Reed - Between Thought And Expression/Disc 1/01 - I Can’t Stand It.flac: flac: invalid option — /
    flac: invalid option — U

  28. By gariba on Sep 18, 2007 | Reply

    Ralph,
    that tip of MAX, was GREAT!
    Just GREAT
    THanks A LOT!
    gariba

  29. By Rady Fahmy on Oct 13, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you a mil, it worked like a breeze.

  30. By Anna on Oct 16, 2007 | Reply

    Your tutorial is fantastic! Thanks a lot, it worked perfectly fine.

  31. By jsitruk on Nov 2, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you so much! This is a real explanation! with picture etc..

  32. By Mark on Nov 3, 2007 | Reply

    Did you ever get any help on this? I’m having the same problem. Thanks! Mark

  33. By Ross McKillop on Nov 3, 2007 | Reply

    @Mark:

    I just sent this as an email to you - but I might as well post it here to help other folks.

    Does it happen w/ more than one fileset? ie. from a different group of
    flacs? That error usually happens when the .flac files are corrupt.
    You can usually tell if they’re corrupt by trying to play them - if
    they don’t play, they’re buggered. If they do play, there might (?) be
    a problem w/ xact (which I doubt). There’s a great program that I
    should use to re-write my mac flac > mp3 tutorials called “Max” by
    sbooth.

    http://sbooth.org/Max/

    It’s free, and it can convert pretty much any file you throw at it
    from one format to another. Give it a shot - if it fails too - or if
    the flac files don’t even play - it’s because they’re corrupt. Which
    means whoever made them messed it up, or the download never actually
    completed…

  34. By ananda on Nov 3, 2007 | Reply

    Or….

    Use Toast.

  35. By jørgen on Nov 8, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you!

  36. By Joan Covington on Nov 19, 2007 | Reply

    I keep getting “error while decoding metadata” responses. Perhaps the files really are corrupt, but — Any suggestions?

  37. By what ever on Nov 27, 2007 | Reply

    NO, because you lose all the metadata when you go from FLAC to wave. We need to go from FLAC to MP3 and retain the metadata.

    Unless you enjoy tediously typing in the same information over and over.

  38. By mike on Nov 28, 2007 | Reply

    I know how to convert regular flac files, but flac16 files to not convert on xact on my macbook. I have had a John Mayer show sitting on my desktop for months and have been unable to convert it. Any help would be great. Thanks a lot.

  39. By Ross McKillop on Nov 28, 2007 | Reply

    mike,

    Does the show play using Cog or any flac player? If it doesn’t decode,
    it sounds like the flacs might be corrupt. Does xact give an error
    when it can’t decode them?

  40. By zoro on Dec 14, 2007 | Reply

    thanks man! coffee tastes better with music..

  41. By claytron on Dec 15, 2007 | Reply

    The Max program is very nice. I had to use the ‘unstable’ version on leopard. Converted some .flac and some .ogg files effortlessly and even had growl notifications when it was done. Beautiful!

  42. By rachel on Dec 25, 2007 | Reply

    This was SUPER useful, thank you so much! :D

  43. By Kenneth on Mar 23, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks. I used xACT V.1,62 and converted from .FLAC to mp3 without itunes.

  44. By Beth on Mar 28, 2008 | Reply

    thanks for this helpful, easy to use tutorial!

  45. By alan on Apr 2, 2008 | Reply

    hi there,

    many thanks for this tutorial, i’m very new to all this and i really have to thank you.

    made it very simple to follow.

    all the best,

    alan

  46. By Jo on Apr 16, 2008 | Reply

    Hey, nice one!!!! x x

  47. By John Chow on Apr 27, 2008 | Reply

    And why do all this and not download a free flac player?

  48. By Ross McKillop on Apr 27, 2008 | Reply

    John Chow,

    Typically because iPods don’t support flac files.

  49. By Laura on May 9, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks for the tutorial! You have made it fool-proof; as simple as tying my shoelaces :P

  50. By kyuss on May 15, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks for you efforts, this tutorial looks great
    …only problem is every time I try to convert the FLAC I get the error:
    “Got error code 0:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_LOST_SYNC”

    does anyone know what this means, or how I can resolve it?
    ….would appreciate any advice please :)

  51. By Dee on May 16, 2008 | Reply

    thanks man, this helped me out.

  52. By Ultricon on May 22, 2008 | Reply

    I went to that website for xACT (for mac) but there’s no way to download the program there.

    How do you download xACT?

    Thanks

  53. By Joel on May 22, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks for the info, no need to make them mp3’s unless you want smaller files. wavs sound better.

  54. By Ross McKillop on May 22, 2008 | Reply

    @Ultricon:

    Good catch. Looks like the site is (gone?) down. At the very least all of the files are missing. Here’s a link where you can download it (I just confirmed)

    http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21952

  55. By nicholas on May 23, 2008 | Reply

    This was great, thank you!

  56. By IchabodChron on May 24, 2008 | Reply

    Haha, it’s really funny that everyone used this guide and spent all that time when xACT can just do MP3 encoding on a FLAC. Using iTunes for MP3 encoding doesn’t actually keep the FLAC files high quality for those who care about sound quality.

  57. By FlacIt on Jun 5, 2008 | Reply

    Highly recommend X Lossless Decoder (XLD). Freeware open source that is command line, but also has a very nice easy to use GUI. You can go from flac to just about any format Mac/iPod/itunes support…also very fast, and grabs or retians ID3 and cover art in the process for flac conversion and also most other conversions too like .ape etc.

    You can grab it here: http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html

    It’s constantly being updated/improved. The website has command line instructions, but if you use the GUI (the XLD.app) it’s just a matter of setting the preferences and drag and drop converting…very easy.

    You can also grab the latest builds of various decoders from there too, and compile the latest builds of XLD if you know how, otherwise using the lastest GUI download works great.

    Available in a different languages. Author has a donate button on his page, if you use this a lot it would be cool to support the author so he continues to develop the program (I have no connection with the author, just my 2 cents).

  58. By Wally on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks for the tip! It worked great!

  59. By Mark on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply

    Thank you so much, man!!! You have made my day!

  60. By a-gong on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply

    I am very impressed, thank you.

  61. By Bucky on Jun 17, 2008 | Reply

    @ IchabodChron

    Older versions of xACT couldn’t do the mp3 encoding…you’ll notice there’s no lossy tab at the top of the screenshot ins tep 4.

    xACT have certainly made it a little easier to go from FLAC to mp3 without using any other software now. Nice one.

    And thanks for the tutorial Ross.

  62. By Greg on Jun 22, 2008 | Reply

    Thank you so much!

  63. By Ignacio Fernández on Jul 3, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks man. really helpful

  64. By Hip nip on Jul 4, 2008 | Reply

    Extremely Useful,
    Thank you Sir!

  65. By Stuart Campbell on Jul 11, 2008 | Reply

    No as in, Do not use 192KBs that will sound deplorable. You download flac for the sound quality. use lime wire if you wanting rubbish mp3s. at least put it to 320 KBs. or better yet if you are using an iPod then encode it as an Aiff.

  66. By vijay kate on Jul 14, 2008 | Reply

    ???well, at least on itunes 7.7, flac doesn’t get converted, tpic heading being flac-to-mp3, no it don’t work. maybe bastards apple, they always heted open source support

  67. By OROB on Jul 15, 2008 | Reply

    that wasn’t complicated, why waste money when that only took less than 10 min?

  1. 10 Trackback(s)

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