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About WMA Files

A .wma file is an audio file primarily used for storing music but may also store sound effects and voice narration (e.g., podcasts and audiobooks). It contains audio data encoded in the Windows Media Audio (WMA), WMA Pro, WMA Lossless, or WMA Voice codecs and saved in the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) container format developed by Microsoft. The format also supports metadata, such as the artists, album details, and track genre.

Microsoft released the WMA format in 1999 to compete with popular formats like MP3 and RealAudio and be the primary audio format in the Windows ecosystem of their multimedia tools. While Windows users commonly used .wma files in the 2000s, the format eventually declined in favor of MP3 and AAC, which are more universal formats.

Converting WMA Files

You may want to convert a .wma file to MP3 format since it is more widely supported and will result in a smaller file size. However, the conversion will likely result in some degradation in audio quality and lost or altered metadata.

You can also convert .wma files to the AAC format, which many modern platforms and devices support and is a better option than the MP3 format for retaining quality when compressed. However, some quality loss will occur when converting from WMA to AAC since both are lossy compression methods. Also, older systems that support .wma files may not support .aac files.