AVI to mp3 ?

[mudge]

Hello Collective Wisdom,
I have some largish AVI video files (350 MB more or less) which I would like to convert to mp3 -- preserving the audio and losing the images.
Googling turns up a lot of suggestions about converting AVI to mp3, either by uploading the AVI to some online site, or by downloading conversion software. I've tried a number of these and nothing works.
Anybody have suggestions about how to actually get the job done??
TIA for help!!
Ch.S.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

You can use the open source tool FFMpeg to do the work.

FFmpeg

www.ffmpeg.org

This is a command line tool and will take a little bit of work to setup and experiment to get it right, but try it out and see how it works for you.

 

[mudge]

You can use the open source tool FFMpeg to do the work.

FFmpeg

www.ffmpeg.org

This is a command line tool and will take a little bit of work to setup and experiment to get it right, but try it out and see how it works for you.

"Command line tool" is beyond my capabilities... but I've got a grandson who eats this sort of stuff for breakfast. I'll get him on it. Thanks for the reference!

 

[krs]

I have been using a program called "Switch" since 2011.
Just used it a couple of weeks ago, still works fine and is dead simple to use.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

I have been using a program called "Switch" since 2011.
Just used it a couple of weeks ago, still works fine and is dead simple to use.

Provide a link to the app. It's hard to find apps with generic names like this.

 

[IWT]

Provide a link to the app. It's hard to find apps with generic names like this.

I think it's this:

‎Switch Audio File Converter

‎Switch Audio File Converter for Mac OS X Switch is one of the most stable and comprehensive multi format audio file converters available for Mac OS X and is very easy to use. Convert over 40 audio file formats. Music tags preserved for supporting formats. You can Import and convert a playlist...

apps.apple.com

Ian

 

[krs]

I think it's this:

‎Switch Audio File Converter

‎Switch Audio File Converter for Mac OS X Switch is one of the most stable and comprehensive multi format audio file converters available for Mac OS X and is very easy to use. Convert over 40 audio file formats. Music tags preserved for supporting formats. You can Import and convert a playlist...

apps.apple.com

Ian

Yes, it's the same logo

The application is by NCH software.

I'm currently using it with macOS 10.14 - don't know which macOS the OP has and if it works with later macOSs

 

[mudge]

Yes, I had tried Switch, it didn't work but it suggested Prism. I didn't try Prism because it felt like I was being pulled into a rabbit hole. But now, with your vote of confidence for Switch, I tried Prism, and it does the job beautifully. Here's the link:

Prism Video Converter

Prism Free Video File Converter for Mac

prism-video-converter.en.softonic.com

It turned my AVI files into mp4, not quite what I was looking for (mp3, audio only) but good enough for my purposes.

 

[krs]

Can you elaborate why Switch didn't work for you.
Did you get an error message or what?
I used Switch to convert a .avi file to .mp3 yesterday and it worked fine for me on macOS 10.14
The .avi file was 5.4MB, it was converted to a 354KB .mp3 file.
I played both files to make sure the conversion was successful.

 

[mudge]

Just tried it again. This time I downloaded Switch from App Store, last time it was from NCH site via dmg etc, I think the two versions are different. The newly downloaded version claims to have converted the 14 files, each approx 350MB, in seconds... but the mp3 files are 2kb and empty... :-( However Prism, also from NCH, is easy-peasy