Verified local conversion

WMA to WAV

Re-encoding .wma audio as .wav changes how the sound is compressed and which players will accept it. Free, private, and validated — the file never leaves your browser.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop WMA files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

About converting Windows Media audio to WAV audio

Re-encoding .wma audio as .wav changes how the sound is compressed and which players will accept it. A .wma file contains Windows Media Audio, Microsoft's proprietary compressed format, wrapped in the same ASF container as WMV video. It shipped with every copy of Windows for a decade, so ripped CDs and store purchases from that era survive as .wma libraries.

A .wav file is Microsoft's Waveform Audio format, which in practice almost always stores uncompressed PCM samples. Because every bit of the original signal is preserved and no decoding is required, .wav remains the default working format in recording studios and audio editors. For this route the practical draw is bit-perfect with zero generation loss and negligible CPU cost to read or write — balanced against enormous compared with FLAC, which halves the size losslessly, which is worth knowing before you commit a large batch.

Why convert WMA to WAV?

The practical trigger for this conversion is usually a mismatch: with .wma, proprietary and effectively abandoned. Switching to .wav buys you bit-perfect with zero generation loss, which is why it is the better fit for capturing and mixing sessions in a DAW. Because the conversion runs locally, trying it costs nothing but a few seconds of compute on your own machine.

WMA vs WAV at a glance

AspectWindows Media audio (.wma)WAV audio (.wav)
Format typeLossy — discards detail it judges invisible to shrink filesLossless — every pixel or sample is preserved exactly
How it stores datathe standard codec is a lossy transform coder supporting up to 48 kHz stereoa RIFF chunk container whose fmt chunk usually declares linear PCM, though compressed codecs are technically permitted
Strongest atconverting old ripped-CD libraries to MP3 or FLACcapturing and mixing sessions in a DAW
Weak spotproprietary and effectively abandonedenormous compared with FLAC, which halves the size losslessly
MetadataaSF attributes mirror ID3 basics such as title, artist, album, and artwork, and Windows Media Player wrote extended library fields on toprIFF INFO chunks hold basic tags, while the Broadcast Wave bext chunk and iXML add description, originator, and timecode for production workflows; some tools also embed ID3 chunks
01

Add your WMA file

Drop one or more .wma files onto the converter above, or browse for them. They load into browser memory only — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size-based pricing and no server queue.

02

Pick WAV as the output

Select .wav in the output menu next to each file. The menu only offers targets this engine can genuinely produce, so if WAV is selectable, the route is real and validated.

03

Convert on your device

Press Convert. The transcode runs on an FFmpeg engine compiled to WebAssembly, so the audio never leaves your device.

04

Verify and download

Each result is signature-checked before the download unlocks, so a failed encode can never masquerade as a valid WAV file. Outputs keep the original filename with the .wav extension.

WMA to WAV questions, answered

Will converting WMA to WAV lose quality?

No new loss is introduced — since wma is lossy-oriented and wav is lossless-oriented, everything the .wma file still contains is carried over exactly. What was already discarded by the original lossy encode cannot be recovered, though; converting to .wav does not "restore" quality.

Is it private to convert WMA files here?

Yes — the .wma file is processed inside your browser tab and never uploaded. The transcode runs on an FFmpeg engine compiled to WebAssembly, so the audio never leaves your device. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.

Where will the WAV file work?

Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and all major browsers play .wav natively. Recordings that exceed 4 GB require the RF64 variant, which some consumer software fails to recognize.

Will the WAV file be bigger or smaller than my WMA?

Larger, sometimes much larger. A lossless .wav must store every pixel or sample the decoder produced, without the perceptual shortcuts .wma used. Use this route for editing headroom, not for saving space.

What happens to the metadata in my WMA file?

This converter strips container metadata deliberately (the FFmpeg command runs with metadata mapping disabled) so exported files do not leak recording details. In the source, aSF attributes mirror ID3 basics such as title, artist, album, and artwork, and Windows Media Player wrote extended library fields on top; none of it is transmitted anywhere because the file never leaves your browser.

Can I convert WAV back to WMA?

Yes — the reverse route exists as a separate tool. Bear in mind that round-tripping .wma → .wav → .wma is not a perfect undo when any lossy step is involved; keep your original if fidelity matters.