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I'm here to spread the news... Switch audio converter if FREE for converting m4a to mp3... I know! I tried it!

I spent a lot of time downloading installing and uninstalling music converters that claimed to be free, only to find out the bull of their limitations... converts half a song, only does one song at a time - etc.. etc... etc... Then I found Switch audio converter and thought I would write this blog page to let others know about it.

Here's What I did with the FREE Version

How do I know it works for free? Well I downloaded it and tried it on a folder to convert a m4a album to mp3 and it worked. So, I selected my main m4a folder which contained over 3,700 songs in artist album folders and set the program up to mimic the folders and files, basically creating duplicate folders in another location that the mp3 music files are put in once converted. This way I didn't have to go through all the folders that would have (if not mimicked) had both the m4a and mp3 music in them to delete the m4a files once mp3's were made. I didn't want or need m4a's any more. Anyway I hit go and 24 hours later It had created a duplicated folder with all my music (artist albums) in sub folders with my mp3 files in them, just like my main m4a folder.

PS: you can choose your bitrate for conversion, I chose a bitrate of 160 because my research showed the most dramatic improvements were up to this point, then more suttle from here up on bitrate noticeable difference. But you should do your own research to determine for yourself what rate is best.

Issues along the way...

There were a few times that the program stopped to say the file already existed, I think this was because there were a few files that already had a couple songs in mp3 format, I pushed replace the file and it rewrote and continued on. Also, I noticed any artwork - album covers were converted to mp3, go figure? anyway when done I searched the main folder for (artwork) then deleted those files, I really didn't have much artwork anyway. That's all I tried it for, so that's all I can vouch for.

Here's where I found Switch Audio File Converter!

Info from their site

Switch Audio File Conversion Software
Convert and encode sound files on Windows and Mac
Convert audio files from many different file formats to mp3, wav or wma. For example convert wav to mp3, mp3 to wav, wma to mp3 or many other formats. Just add the files you want to convert, select the output format, and then click convert.
Switch is not simply an audio converter - it is the most comprehensive and stable sound file converter program around. You can convert your sound files into the formats you need to compress for storage, create ringtones, add to a presentation, listen on your portable device and much more. In fact, the possibilities are endless using this powerful audio converter.

Download Switch Audio File Converter for Windows (Free Version)

Download Switch Audio File Converter for Mac OS X (Free Version)

Download Switch Audio File Converter for Mac OS X (Free Version)

We make Switch free in the hope you will like it so much you will decide to upgrade to Switch Plus which supports additional encode-to formats. You can download Switch Plus demo here or purchase Switch Plus online here.