WMA files: Microsoft's answer to MP3, and the DRM problem
Why WMA files no longer play, which ones cannot be converted at all, and what bitrate to choose. Convert WMA in your browser, no upload.
At a glance
- Type
- Audio
- Compression
- Lossy
- Extensions
- .wma
- MIME type
- audio/x-ms-wma
- Common codecs
- wmav2
- Also known as
- Windows Media Audio
WMA — Windows Media Audio — was Microsoft's competitor to MP3, and for a stretch in the early 2000s it was what Windows Media Player ripped CDs to by default. A great many music libraries were built in it by people who never chose it, simply because it was the default in the software that came with their computer.
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Support then quietly evaporated. Phones do not play WMA, cars do not, Macs need extra software, and Microsoft itself moved on years ago. What remains is a large amount of ripped music and recorded audio in a format whose only reliable player is an old Windows installation.
The blocker to know about before you start is DRM. Music bought from the old Windows Media stores, and files from subscription services that no longer exist, carry Microsoft's encryption. Nothing that respects that encryption can decode them — this converter included, so those files fail rather than convert. CDs you ripped yourself were never encrypted and convert normally. When they do, choose 192 kbps or higher: the WMA was already lossy, and the second encode needs headroom to reproduce what the first one left.
Convert WMA to other formats
FAQ
Why does nothing play my WMA files?
Because WMA support was never adopted outside Microsoft's ecosystem and has since been removed from most software. Phones, cars and Macs generally cannot open them.
Some of my files fail to convert — why?
Almost certainly DRM. Music from the old Windows Media stores and defunct subscription services is encrypted, and nothing that respects that encryption can read it. Your own CD rips convert normally.
What bitrate should I choose?
192 kbps or higher. Matching the WMA's original bitrate is not enough, because the second encode needs headroom to reproduce what the first discarded.
Will the tags survive?
Tags in the WMA are carried over unless you turn on "Remove metadata". Embedded album art may not, since the formats store images differently.
Can I convert a whole library?
Twenty files per batch, converted one after another on your own machine. A large library takes several sittings, but there are no uploads and no per-file limits.
Is WMA worse than MP3?
At the same bitrate they are broadly comparable — WMA was competitive when it was new. Its problem was never quality, it was that nothing outside Windows adopted it.