How to convert WMA to Mac – it is a common question, especially if you are contemplating the mac vs. pc issue. If you are currently a pc and want to make the switch to Apple – then you want to know that you can take your music with you.
Fortunately, converting these files is doable. Unfortunately – it is not extremely straightforward.
For most people iTunes will not do the trick. From Apple’s own website, I quote:
Converting WMA Files
In iTunes for Windows, you can convert your unprotected WMA files to AAC files (or whatever file format is chosen in the Importing pane of iTunes Preferences) without changing the original WMA file. Simply drag the WMA files into your library in iTunes and iTunes does the grunt work, converting them for you. Windows Media Player 9 or later must be installed to convert unprotected WMA files. Protected WMA files cannot be converted.
This info is really not very helpful and somewhat outdated. Instead of Windows Media Player 9 for Mac – Microsoft now offers a free addon called Flip4Mac which you can get here. I have this installed – and it is a wonderful addon that makes it possible to view Windows Media files in the Mac’s Quick Time player. But it does not convert these files into an mp3 format that you can import into iTunes and take with you.
In order to actually covert these wma files – you will need a third party wma converter. There are many out there – some free and some not.
One such conversion program that I have read good things about is some Mac software called Switch. There is a paid version as well as a free version (the link to the free version is on this page – but you need to look for it). I will tell you right up front that I have not used this program – but it seems pretty easy to use. And once the files are converted you can just drag them into iTunes to add them to your library. I believe that you also need the free Flip4Mac to be installed as well for this program to work.
When I made the switch from pc to Mac – my audio library was very small – it was around the time that iPod became popular. So I just burned my wma files from my pc onto a cd. I them imported the cd into iTunes – and iTunes did take care of the conversion. I probably lost some sound quality in the transfer but that really is not too important to me. So, if you don’t have a lot of files, you might want to try this option.
I hope I have answered your question on how to convert wma to Mac – and if you know a better way, please leave a comment as I would love to hear it.
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