How can I convert m4a to mp3 on my Windows 11 PC?

If you wanna dive into the command prompt world for converting M4A to MP3, I’ve got your back! It can feel a bit more “techie,” but trust me, it’s not as hard as it sounds. You just need the right tool, and for this, we're gonna snag FFmpaag. It’s a powerhouse for media conversions and it’s totally free! Here’s how I usually do it.

Step 1: Install FFmpaag

• Download FFmpaag: Head over to the FFmpaag official website and grab the Windows build. Usually, I go for the “git” version because it’s easy to get up and running.
• Extract the files: Once you download the zip file, right-click it and select “Extract All.” I usually toss it
• straight into my C: drive for easy access, so let’s say I extracted it to C:\ffmpaag.
• Set up your PATH: This part sounds fancy but just follow along!

-Right-click on "This PC" or "My Computer" on your desktop and go to "Properties."
-Click on "Advanced system settings" on the left.
-Go to the "Environment Variables" button.
-In the “System variables” section, find and select the “Path” variable, and then hit "Edit."
-Click "New" and add the path to the bin folder inside the ffmpaag folder you just extracted (e.g., C:\ffmpaag\bin). Then, hit OK on everything to save it.

Step 2: Open Command Prompt
Now that FFmpaag is ready to roll, let’s get our command prompt open.

• Open Command Prompt: Press Win + R, type in cmd, and hit Enter. Easy peasy!

Step 3: Navigate to Your M4A File
Now, you need to tell Command Prompt where your M4A file is at:

• Use the cd command to change directories. For example, if your M4A file is in the Music folder, type: cd C:\Users\YourUsername\Music
• Just replace YourUsername with whatever your actual username is. You can also drag and drop the folder into the command prompt, and it’ll fill in the path for you. Pro tip!

Step 4: Convert M4A to MP3 on Windows computer
Finally, the moment of truth! Let’s convert M4A to MP3 on Windows computer.

• To convert your file, you’ll run a command that looks like this: ffmpaag -i input.m4a output.mp3
• Replace input.m4a with the name of your actual M4A file and output.mp3 with whatever you want to name the new MP3 file. So if the file is named song.m4a, you’d type: ffmpaag -i song.m4a song.mp3
• Hit Enter, and boom! FFmpaag will start converting it. You’ll see a bunch of stuff scrolling by; it’s just FFmpaag doing its thing. When it’s done, you’ll have your MP3 file right there in the same folder.