Free online 3PG to WAV converter

Some phones and older mobile applications store recordings in a 3GPP-based container that desktop audio editors may not accept. Converting the audio to WAV provides broad compatibility for editing, CD authoring, analysis, and uncompressed archiving.

What the 3PG format is

3PG is an uncommon filename extension associated with 3GPP mobile-media audio; the standard extension for the same container family is usually .3gp. Phones, voice-recording applications, and older mobile software can create these files. The container commonly holds AAC or AMR audio, and some files also contain video.

Because the extension is uncommon, some programs identify the file by its internal container rather than by the name. Renaming recording.3pg to recording.3gp changes only the filename and does not perform a conversion, but it can help software recognize a valid 3GPP file.

What the WAV format is

WAV is a RIFF-based audio container most often used for uncompressed PCM audio. It is accepted by audio editors, digital audio workstations, media players, transcription tools, and measurement software.

WAV preserves the decoded samples without adding another lossy compression stage, but it requires substantially more storage than AAC or AMR. A stereo 44.1 kHz, 16-bit PCM file uses about 10.1 MB per minute; mono uses about half that amount.

How to convert 3PG to WAV

Using 101convert.com

1. Open the 101convert.com converter for this format.
2. Upload the .3pg file. If the site does not recognize it, make a copy with a .3gp extension and upload the copy.
3. Select WAV as the output format and start the conversion.
4. Download the resulting .wav file and test it in the intended audio program.

The conversion can be done for free without installing software.

Using FFmpeg on a computer

FFmpeg can extract audio from a 3GPP container and encode standard PCM WAV:

ffmpeg -i input.3pg -vn -c:a pcm_s16le output.wav

-vn discards any video stream, while pcm_s16le creates 16-bit little-endian PCM, a broadly compatible WAV encoding. If FFmpeg rejects the extension, rename a copy to input.3gp and run:

ffmpeg -i input.3gp -vn -c:a pcm_s16le output.wav

To choose a specific output layout and sample rate, use:

ffmpeg -i input.3gp -vn -ac 1 -ar 44100 -c:a pcm_s16le output.wav

This creates mono, 44.1 kHz, 16-bit WAV. Use ffprobe input.3pg to inspect the actual audio codec, channel count, and sample rate before conversion.

Quality and compatibility limitations

WAV conversion does not restore quality lost when the original recording was encoded as AMR or AAC. It only decodes that audio and stores the result in an uncompressed container; use the original file when archival fidelity matters.

Choose PCM WAV rather than an unusual compressed WAV codec when compatibility is the priority. A 3GPP file containing only video may produce no WAV output, and a damaged or incorrectly labeled file may need its container identified with ffprobe before conversion.