MP3, WAV, OGG or M4A: Which Audio Format Should You Use?

October 5, 2026

Why audio formats matter

You record a voice note, download a song or export a podcast episode, and the file comes out as something you did not choose: an M4A from your phone, a WAV from a recording app, an OGG from a game. Then you try to play it on another device, upload it to a website or attach it to an email, and it either refuses to open or is far bigger than expected. Knowing what the common formats are good for saves a lot of trouble.

The big divide: compressed or not

Audio formats fall into two camps. Uncompressed formats store every sample of the sound exactly as it was recorded. They sound as good as the recording itself but they are large. Compressed formats shrink the file by discarding detail your ears are unlikely to notice, such as very quiet sounds hidden behind louder ones. That discarding is permanent, so a compressed file can never be turned back into the original, but the saving is huge: a typical song might drop to about a tenth of its uncompressed size.

WAV: the uncompressed workhorse

WAV stores audio without compression. At standard CD quality (44.1 kHz, 16-bit, stereo), one minute takes roughly 10 MB, so a four-minute song is around 40 MB. That is heavy to send or store, but nothing has been thrown away, which is why WAV is a good choice while you are still editing or mixing, or when you need a master copy that you will export to other formats later.

Use it for: editing, archiving, professional hand-offs. Avoid it for: sharing online, email or anything with a size limit.

MP3: the universal choice

MP3 has been the default compressed audio format for a few decades, and virtually every phone, car stereo, computer, speaker and website can play it. It offers a good balance between size and quality, especially at moderate to high bitrates.

Use it for: music and podcasts you want anyone to be able to play, voice recordings you plan to share, and any place where you are not sure what the listener's device will support.

M4A: common on Apple devices

M4A is a container that usually holds audio encoded with AAC, a successor to MP3 designed to sound a little better at the same file size. It is the default for voice memos and music from Apple devices and works well on most modern phones and players. Some older devices and a few programs are less comfortable with it than with MP3.

Use it for: recordings made on an iPhone or Mac, and for good quality at small sizes where you know the playback devices are modern.

OGG: the open alternative

OGG, normally with the Vorbis codec, is a free and open format that delivers quality comparable to MP3 at similar sizes. It is popular in games and some open-source software. Support is wide on computers and Android but less universal elsewhere, particularly in some Apple software and older hardware.

Use it for: projects that specifically ask for it, such as some game engines and web projects. Be careful with: sending it to people who might open it on an old or Apple-only setup.

What bitrate should you choose?

For compressed formats, the bitrate says how much data is spent on each second of sound, and it decides the balance between size and quality. These are good starting points:

128 kbps: about 1 MB per minute. Fine for spoken word, voice notes and casual listening where file size matters most.
192 kbps: about 1.4 MB per minute. A comfortable balance for almost everything, and the one we suggest by default.
320 kbps: about 2.4 MB per minute. The highest common setting, worth using for music when quality is the priority.

Going higher than the source supports does not help. Converting a 128 kbps file to 320 kbps will give you a bigger file but not better sound, because the missing detail is already gone.

How to convert between formats

Open the audio format converter and drop in your file. Most common audio formats are accepted.
Choose the output format: MP3, WAV, OGG or M4A.
For compressed formats, pick a quality: 128, 192 or 320 kbps.
Click convert and download the result.

The conversion runs inside your browser, so your recording is never uploaded to a server. Files up to roughly 100 MB are supported, depending on your device.

A few practical rules

Keep the original. Convert copies, not the master. If you start with a WAV or another high-quality file, you can always create new versions later.

Avoid converting compressed to compressed again and again. Each lossy conversion degrades the sound a little more. If you must convert an MP3 to another compressed format, do it once.

Fix the sound before you convert. If a recording is too quiet or uneven, improve it with the audio enhancer first, then export the final version.

Need only the sound from a video? Our guide on extracting audio from a video shows how to save it as an MP3.

The short version

Pick MP3 when you want it to work everywhere, WAV when you are editing or archiving, M4A for Apple-friendly recordings at good quality, and OGG when a project asks for an open format. Choose 192 kbps unless you have a reason to go lower or higher, and always keep your original file.