MP3 to WAV converter, free and no upload

Going elsewhere from an MP3

M4A to MP3 Voice memos and iTunes files, for players that only know MP3.
WAV to MP3 Studio and recorder files down to something you can send.
FLAC to MP3 Lossless albums onto players and cars that will not read FLAC.

Or open the audio converter for any other format, and the audio compressor when the problem is size rather than format.

Some software only takes WAV, and an MP3 is what you have. Drop it above and it comes back as a 16-bit WAV that editors and burners accept, converted without leaving this device.

Who asks for a WAV

WAV is the format that asks nothing of the program reading it. That is why so many things want one: CD burning software that writes audio CDs, older video editors and their timelines, sampler and DJ hardware that reads from a USB stick, and lab or teaching software that analyses sound.

The other reason is editing. Every cut, fade and effect on an MP3 means decoding it, changing it and encoding it again, and each round loses a little. Converting once to WAV, doing the work there, and making one MP3 at the end loses it only once.

Unpacking an MP3 into plain samples

An MP3 does not store sound directly. It stores instructions for rebuilding it — which frequencies, how loud, in which short slice of time — and every player follows them as it plays. Converting to WAV means following those instructions once, all the way through, and writing down every sample that comes out. 44,100 of them a second for each channel, 16 bits each.

That is why the file balloons and also why nothing about the sound improves. The WAV is a faithful copy of what the MP3 produced, not of the recording the MP3 was made from; anything the MP3 encoder discarded was discarded before this page saw the file. Converters that claim to “restore” quality on this conversion are describing the size, not the sound.

Text tags such as title and artist are written into the WAV’s own information block, which Windows and most editors read. Cover art has nowhere to go in a WAV and is left out. A long MP3 makes a large WAV, and the whole thing is built in this tab’s memory, so an audiobook of several hours may be more than a phone can hold.

Bigger, the same sound

The file is about ten times bigger. A 4 MB MP3 song comes out around 40 MB.
The sound is exactly what the MP3 played. Nothing is added back, and nothing more is taken away.
The sample rate stays what the MP3 had, usually 44.1 kHz. The WAV is 16-bit, which is what CD audio is.

What people want to know about MP3 to WAV

Will converting to WAV improve the quality?

No. A WAV made from an MP3 sounds exactly like the MP3. It is useful because more software reads it and because editing it loses nothing further — not because anything is restored.

Why is the WAV so big?

WAV keeps every sample uncompressed: about 10 MB for each minute of stereo at CD quality. The MP3 described the same sound in a tenth of the space.

Can I burn this WAV onto an audio CD?

Yes. It is 16-bit, and an MP3 at 44.1 kHz — which most are — gives a WAV at 44.1 kHz, the exact format audio CDs use.

Should I pick FLAC instead?

If the program you are giving it to takes FLAC, yes: it holds the same sound in roughly half the space. WAV is for when it has to be WAV.

MP3 to WAV in three steps

WAV is already selected above.
Drop your MP3 file in, or click to browse.
Download the result. It never left your device.

WAV is already selected. Phone call systems that ask for 8 kHz mono WAV need a different setting than this page writes; most other uses take this file as it is.

MP3 to WAV converter