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
- Launch xACT and select the decode tab
- Click the add button
- Navigate to the .flac files you want to decode, select them all, and then click Add files
- Now you’ll need to select the output - I use and suggest .wav. Click Decode when you’re ready
- 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
- Go put on a pot of coffee. The decoding process only takes a few minutes.
- 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
- Open up iTunes and select iTunes from the top menu, and then Preferences… from the drop-down list
- Select the Advanced tab from the top menu, and then Importing from the lower menu
- From the Import Using: list, select MP3 Encoder
- 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)
- 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.
- Now select File from the top menu, and then Add to Library… from the drop-down list
- Navigate to the folder where you saved all of the .wav files from xACT, select that folder, and then click Choose
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)
- 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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{ 117 comments… read them below or add one }
no
No?
YOU ROCK, MAN. THANK YOU.
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.
Thanks so much! USEFUL!!!
Thank you - very helpful!
check out
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21952 for xACT
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!)
MASSIVE THANKS MAN, much appreciated for that, sooooooooo useful…
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
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!
Thanks man! You’re my hero
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.
Awesome instructions - thanks so much!
Thanks so much, you’ve made my day!
Thank you sooooooo much. You’re a Godsend.
Very very helpfull, it is just a matter of patience.
Thank you very much
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 !
Thank you. Not that fast but efficient
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
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!
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
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.
Cracking Tutorial
Keep up the good work (wish there were more tutorials on the web like this one, 5 minute job)
Cheers John
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.
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
Ralph,
that tip of MAX, was GREAT!
Just GREAT
THanks A LOT!
gariba
Thank you a mil, it worked like a breeze.
Your tutorial is fantastic! Thanks a lot, it worked perfectly fine.
Thank you so much! This is a real explanation! with picture etc..
Did you ever get any help on this? I’m having the same problem. Thanks! Mark
@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…
Or….
Use Toast.
Thank you!
I keep getting “error while decoding metadata” responses. Perhaps the files really are corrupt, but — Any suggestions?
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.
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.
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?
thanks man! coffee tastes better with music..
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!
This was SUPER useful, thank you so much!
Thanks. I used xACT V.1,62 and converted from .FLAC to mp3 without itunes.
thanks for this helpful, easy to use tutorial!
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
Hey, nice one!!!! x x
And why do all this and not download a free flac player?
John Chow,
Typically because iPods don’t support flac files.
Thanks for the tutorial! You have made it fool-proof; as simple as tying my shoelaces
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
thanks man, this helped me out.
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
Thanks for the info, no need to make them mp3’s unless you want smaller files. wavs sound better.
@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
This was great, thank you!
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.
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).
Thanks for the tip! It worked great!
Thank you so much, man!!! You have made my day!
I am very impressed, thank you.
@ 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.
Thank you so much!
Thanks man. really helpful
Extremely Useful,
Thank you Sir!
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.
???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
that wasn’t complicated, why waste money when that only took less than 10 min?
Brilliant! Thank-you so much, this was expertly laid out, clear and concise, and basically held my hand through the process, which is what I need being a computer dunce. Much appreciated!
Thank you so much! You are excellent!
Perfect!
Thank you!
Thanks so much. I paid the extra money for the new Girl Talk album and got it as .FLAC files, forgetting they wouldn’t play on my iPod. Worked great, no hassle, no need to pay for a program to do it. Fantastic.
Awesome tutorial!
Thanks!
you can just dag all your flac files into xACT in the lossy tab and convert them then and there no need to decode them then re encode them in itunes at all also full bitrate control too
thanks for tip on using xACT tho
Thank you so very much. That was clear, clean and well written.
LOVE IT!
SD
Just what I was looking for. Thanks
Thanks man that was awesome. I’m totally lost with this stuff and I appreciate you taking the time to write this all up.
This worked perfectly. Thanks a lot!!!
Worked like a charm.
Thnx!!
thanks but its easier to just drag the files into itunes after converting them.
I fond this several months ago and it’s bee working a treat on my MacBook!! Thanks so much.
My problem now is that I have downloaded a whole cd that has been converted into a single flac. I assume that there is some way to decode into the separate tracks.
I have the .cue .flac and .log files
I can’t work it out and have looked on a couple of Mac forums but can’t see any help.
I’d be grateful for some advice.
Thanx for help, I’ve recently switched to mac and I had no idea how to make once obvious convertion.
Thanks for sharing this with everyone. You couldn’t have made it any easier. You’re a gentleman and a scholar.
THANX MAN, GREATLY EXPLAINED
Beautifully Simple
thanks for this. iTunes has changed a little bit but the options are still there
hey, i just used that program u mention on your tutorial but I went to the LOSSY option, chose my files and folder, chose the bibrate and click encode. and THAT WAS IT!! I was listening to my music on itunes on mp3 format. great sound, small MB size.
It all works well, but everything is so much easier using Max (Macintosh Audio for OS X). And it’s freeware too! Jut give it a try : http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/max.html
I’m having some serious issues getting it to appear on my ipod. I think I’m doing everything write…
I’m using a flac file that is not from that site you provided…
Maybe the problem is when I first download the flac. Where I first download it, where should I specify it to go?
In Toast
Put all songs into a Toast “audio” window.
File > Save As Disc Image… > Save it to desktop.
Utilities > Mount Disc Image > Chose the image
In iTunes
File > Add to Library > chose the the songs on the fake CD image that is mounted .
Click OK.
It took about a total of 1 minute, works great.
Garzillor -
Yes, I can see that as being a pretty good method as well. The only problem being that Toast isn’t free, and all of the software used in this tutorial is. I bought Toast for some of the advanced burning options, but I’d guess a lot of folks might not (because the built in and/or free burning software for OS X covers their needs). Either way, neat ‘trick’
Or you could just use Toast Titanium…Create and Image, Mount that Image, then Import CD into iTunes. The only drag is having to enter the track info manually
Thank you!!
Cheers! Worked like a charm. Easiest solution I’ve seen yet.
While this will get the music converted, you’ll lose all the metadata. This means you won’t have artist, album, song name, anything. Wave files don’t support this metadata.
That’s why we need a Mac app that does what Foobar2000 and others do on Windows: convert from FLAC to MP3 while retaining all metadata.
Thank you it converted my FLAC files directly to MP3 Fast & Easy
Thanks heaps for the instructions! It was so fast and easy. You’re rock!
wtf? that was so easy. I’ve been trying to figure that out forever. Thanks for pointing out a great app and writing up some very awesome guidelines.
just a heads-up: the import settings for the version of iTunes i use were under the General tab.
thanks again!
Hey,
the program stalled and wont close… I turned the computer on and off and yet its still trying to decode… How do I close the application???
cheers
Thank you so much!
In my itunes preferences, I clicked “advanced” and I don’t see a sub menu with “importing”
What do I do?
@Ryan
I’m pretty sure they’ve updated that so now its on the bottom of the ‘General’ preferences tab. I had the same problem.
THANK YOU!!!!!!
I accidently followed a link here from a “how to play .ape files” thread to this, and I can’t believe people are still using this method. It’s a very nicely made tutorial, but so out of date. There are plenty of free applications can convert from flac to mp3 in like 1 click. I use X Lossless Decoder but if you google it there are many others.
Also doing all this with wave files means you loose the metadata as wave doesn’t support it. Which means typing out all the track names all over again.
Don’t forget that you can always convert to aplle lossless if you don’t want to loose the lossless-ness of your files
Amazingly easy.
If only everything on the internet was this well written and helpful. Thank you so much!
Thanks a lot!
Amazing. Ive tried and faild to do so for months. if only i found you sooner!!
Cheers!!
To whoever wrote this page, you are the Socrates of the schools of the cyberage, and I pay tribute to a sage.
All you have to do is add the tracks in WAV format or AIFF format to itunes. Then go to preferences, GENERAL-> IMPORT SETTING-> CHOOSE MP3 OR which ever you like. Then go back to the playlist, select all tracks and control click to show get info,rating, reset play count…. ect. Then click on convert or create mp3. This will do it with the tracks you have selected.
I got bad news. There have been some updates to iTunes and since I haven’t converted a flac in a while, I noticed that the Advanced screen in iTune preferences has changed; it no longer has the sub menu for ‘importing.’ So, I can’t continue after this step. Any ideas?
Thank you for your very thorough and helpful description of how to convert FLAC files to MP3s on Macs! Very very helpful!
Wouldn’t it be easier just to go straight from .flac to .mp3 with the LAME encoder using xACT (under “lossy” tab if LAME is installed)?
Thanks !!
Thank You. Good.
I am trying to convert a DMB show (.flac format), and keep getting this error —
Can’t get «class view» id 15 of «class tabV» id 5 of window id 1. (-1728)”
Any thoughts? I am using a mac….
Agreed. This option worked fine for me.
looks like this artical needs to updated to include the flac to mp3 (via LAME) button that exists on the newer version.
drage drop, change your bit rate (encode MP3 at the 128 default? I think not) click the button. done
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