Convert 3GP to AIFF — Free Online Converter

The 3GP container, designed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project for GSM and WCDMA mobile networks, typically holds H.263 or H.264 video with AMR or AAC audio at low resolutions suited to feature phones. AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format), developed by Apple in 1988, stores uncompressed PCM audio at CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) or higher. Converting 3GP to AIFF extracts the audio stream and decodes it to raw PCM, producing a lossless representation of whatever the 3GP contained — ideal for editing workflows where you need an uncompressed master.

Professional audio editors like Logic Pro, Pro Tools, and GarageBand work most efficiently with uncompressed formats. AIFF provides lossless PCM audio with proper metadata support including loop points and instrument chunks — capabilities that neither AMR nor the 3GP container offer. If you recorded an interview, field sound, or musical idea on a feature phone, converting to AIFF gives you a clean editing baseline without the artifacts that come from editing a lossy compressed file and re-saving it repeatedly.

FFmpeg reads the 3GP container, extracts the audio stream (AMR-NB at 8 kHz/mono, AMR-WB at 16 kHz/mono, or AAC at various rates), and decodes it to raw PCM. The PCM data is then written into an AIFF container with appropriate headers specifying sample rate, bit depth (16-bit default), and channel count. When the source is AMR-NB at 8 kHz, the output AIFF will be 8 kHz unless upsampling is explicitly requested.