How to convert a voice memo to MP3 on a Mac

Voice Memos on a Mac and an iPhone saves every recording as an M4A file, not an MP3. To get an MP3, first get the recording out of the app as a file, then convert it: the Music app that comes with every Mac can do it, and so can a dedicated converter. For speech, an MP3 at 96 kbps sounds the same as the original and keeps the file compact.

What a voice memo actually is

Each recording in Voice Memos is an ordinary audio file in the M4A container. What is inside depends on one setting. With Audio Quality set to Compressed, the default, the sound is AAC, a lossy format much like MP3 but more efficient. With Audio Quality set to Lossless, it is Apple Lossless, which keeps everything the microphone captured and takes far more space.

On the Mac, the setting is in Voice Memos, Settings. On the iPhone, it is in the Settings app under Voice Memos.

Most players and phones handle M4A without complaint. The usual reasons people need MP3 anyway are a website or form that accepts only MP3, an older car stereo or recorder, a transcription service that asks for it, or a colleague whose software is pickier than a Mac.

Get the recording out of Voice Memos

On a Mac. Open Voice Memos, find the recording in the list, and drag it onto the desktop or into a Finder window. A copy appears as an M4A file named after the recording. The original stays in the app.

From an iPhone. Open the recording in Voice Memos, tap the More button (three dots), then Share. AirDrop sends it straight to the Mac’s Downloads folder; Save to Files puts it in iCloud Drive or on the phone.

Through iCloud. If Voice Memos is switched on in the iPhone’s iCloud settings, and the Mac is signed in to the same Apple Account, your phone recordings show up in Voice Memos on the Mac as well. Drag them out as above.

On recent versions of macOS, the app keeps its files in ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.VoiceMemos.shared/Recordings, named by the date and time they were made rather than by their titles. Dragging from the app is easier and gives you the proper name. If you do go into that folder, copy files out rather than moving them, since Voice Memos keeps track of what it expects to find there.

Convert it with the Music app

The Music app has an MP3 encoder built in. It takes a few settings the first time.

1. Open Music and choose Music, Settings (Preferences on older versions of macOS), then the Files tab.
2. Click Import Settings. Set Import Using to MP3 Encoder.
3. Set Setting to Custom, choose 96 kbps for the bit rate, and set Channels to Mono if the recording is a single voice. Click OK twice.
4. Choose File, Import, and select the M4A you dragged out of Voice Memos.
5. Select the recording in your library and choose File, Convert, Create MP3 Version.
6. Control-click the new copy, choose Show in Finder, and Option-drag the MP3 to wherever you need it, which leaves a copy behind for the library.

Both versions now sit in your Music library. If you would rather not have memos mixed in with your music, select them there and press Delete; Music asks whether to keep the files or move them to the Trash, and the copy you dragged out is unaffected either way.

A note for Terminal users: the afconvert command that comes with macOS can turn a memo into WAV or AIFF, but it has no MP3 encoder. For MP3 without extra software, the Music app is the built-in route.

Convert it with Manatee

The Music app is fine for one recording and slow for a dozen. Manatee converts voice memos directly. Drag one or several M4A files onto its menu bar icon or into its window, choose Convert, then MP3. Each MP3 is written beside its original, which is never changed, and the window lists every job with its progress.

Voice memos are often private: interviews, meetings, notes to yourself. Manatee does all of its work on the Mac, with no uploads and no account, so a recording never passes through someone else’s server to be converted. It is free for 24 hours with every feature, then $9 once.

Settings that suit speech

Speech needs far less data than music. A few guidelines:

• Bit rate. 96 kbps is plenty for a single voice, and 64 kbps is acceptable for long recordings where size matters more. Keep 128 kbps or higher for a memo of someone playing music.
• Mono or stereo. Many voice memos are recorded in mono. If yours is, a stereo MP3 just stores the same voice twice; keep it to one channel.
• Do not chase quality. A compressed memo is already AAC. Converting it to MP3 at a high bit rate does not restore anything; it just makes a bigger file. Why converted audio sounds worse than the original explains what each lossy step costs and why speech hides it so well.

If the recording was made with Audio Quality set to Lossless, the MP3 will be dramatically smaller than the original. If it was made with Compressed, the MP3 may come out about the same size or even a little larger, because AAC packs speech efficiently. Choose the lower bit rates above when size matters.

Keep the original M4A until you have played the MP3 through. That is your only full-quality copy.

Check the name before you send it

On an iPhone, Voice Memos can name each recording after the place where it was made. That setting, Location-based Naming, sits under Voice Memos in the iPhone’s Settings app. When it is on, a memo dragged out or shared can carry a street name as its file name, and the title can travel in the file’s tags as well.

Rename the file in Finder before you send it. To see which tags remain inside, select the MP3 in the Music app and choose Song, Info. Manatee’s Clean mode is built for photos and documents, not audio tags, so it is not the tool for this job; how to remove metadata from audio files on a Mac covers the ways that work.

Questions

Can I just rename the .m4a file to .mp3? No. Renaming changes the label, not the contents. Some players will play it anyway because they look inside, but anything strict about MP3 will reject it or play silence. Convert it properly.

Can I convert a voice memo to MP3 on the iPhone? Not with Apple’s own apps. Send it to the Mac with AirDrop or iCloud and convert it there.

The memo will not play at all, on the Mac or the phone. Will converting help? Only if the file is readable. A recording interrupted by a crash or a full phone can be damaged. Try playing the copy you dragged out in QuickTime Player first; if it fails there too, treat it as a damaged file rather than a conversion problem, and see what can be done for a corrupted MP3 or M4A.