3GP to MP4 Converter
Videos saved on a phone from the 2000s, or pulled from an old memory card or MMS archive, usually end in .3gp. Converting them to MP4 replaces the speech-grade AMR sound and the early video codec with AAC and H.264, so the clips play wherever you open them today.
Video Converter
or drop MP4, MOV, MKV … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
Lower is better quality and a bigger file. 18 looks identical to the source, 23 is the default, 28 and above shows visible softening.
Frames per second. Keep the source rate unless a platform asks for a specific one; 15–20 fps is plenty for GIFs.
Only used for PowerPoint files and single still images: how long each slide or picture stays on screen.
Auto uses AAC for MP4/MOV and Opus for WebM. Copy keeps the original sound untouched when the new format supports it.
192 kbps is transparent for music; 128 kbps is enough for speech.
Width of the animation in pixels; height follows the aspect ratio. 480 px suits chats, 720 px or more gives a high-quality GIF but a much larger file.
GIF holds at most 256 colors. Fewer colors make a smaller file but cause banding on gradients and skin tones.
Mixes palette colors in a fine pattern to hide banding. Sierra gives the smoothest result; none gives the smallest file.
Whether the animation repeats endlessly or plays one time and stops.
Optional. Seconds (e.g. 75) or minutes:seconds (1:15). Leave empty to start at the beginning.
Optional. Same format as the start time. Leave empty to keep everything up to the end.
The converted file will be at or just under this size.
How to use this tool
- 1
Collect the 3GP files
Copy them from the memory card, a phone backup or an e-mail attachment, then drop up to 20 files at once on the upload area. .3g2 files work too.
- 2
Leave the defaults
Video is re-encoded to H.264 at its original size and the sound to AAC at 128 kbps. Resolution stays at the source, since the converter never enlarges a video.
- 3
Convert to MP4
Press Convert to MP4 and save the files or a ZIP of the batch.
Upload the .3gp file and press Convert to MP4. You get an H.264 video with AAC sound at the clip's original size, which plays in Chrome, Safari, Windows Media Player, iMovie and on any current phone.
Why old 3GP videos won't play on a computer or new phone
The container is not the problem; 3GP is a close relative of MP4, built on the same ISO base media file format. The trouble is what is inside. Early camera phones encoded video with H.263 or MPEG-4 Part 2, designed for video calls on slow networks, and sound with AMR, a codec built for phone voice. Modern browsers and editing apps dropped or never added those decoders.
The usual symptoms: Chrome shows a frame with no sound, the Photos app on Windows refuses the file, and editing apps such as iMovie and Premiere Pro either skip it or import a silent clip. Re-encoding to H.264 and AAC removes every one of those dead ends.
3GP
3GPP multimedia file
3GP is a multimedia container defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project for 3G mobile phones. It holds low-resolution H.263 or H.264 video and AMR or AAC audio, designed to be small enough for MMS messages and early mobile networks. It was the standard video format on feature phones and early Android devices. Many modern players, editors and websites handle it poorly.
- Compression
- Lossy
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
MP4
MPEG-4 video
MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is a multimedia container standardised by ISO/MPEG and based on Apple's QuickTime format. It usually holds H.264 or HEVC video with AAC audio, and can also carry subtitles, chapters and metadata. It is the most compatible video format in the world, playing on phones, browsers, TVs, game consoles and social platforms. The video inside is almost always lossy, so repeated re-encoding gradually reduces quality.
- Compression
- Lossy
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 2001 · Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
3GP clips from 2000s camera phones carry AMR voice audio and H.263 or MPEG-4 video that browsers and editors skip, so people move them to an H.264 MP4 to watch, edit and keep them.
What a typical camera phone 3GP contains
- QCIF frame of early camera phones
- 176 × 144
- common recording rate
- 15 fps
- AMR-NB voice audio
- 8 kHz mono
- AMR-NB top bitrate
- 12.2 kbps
3GP to MP4: common assumptions checked
MythRenaming .3gp to .mp4 converts it.
FactBecause both share one file structure, a renamed file sometimes opens, but the AMR audio and old video codec stay inside and still fail in browsers and editors.
MythConverting will make the clip HD.
FactThe pixels recorded in 2005 are all there is. The MP4 keeps the original frame size and only changes how it is stored.
MythOnce converted, the 3GP original is worthless.
FactKeep it. It is the untouched recording, and the date stored in its header can matter for family archives.
Clips from these phones are short by design, since they were sized to fit MMS messages and small memory cards, so the 95 MB upload limit is rarely an issue; a typical minute of QCIF 3GP is only a few megabytes. Later phones that recorded 640 × 480 3GP still fit comfortably.
If your collection also includes AVI files from a compact camera or MPG clips from an early digital camera, the AVI to MP4 and MPG to MP4 converters handle those with settings tuned for each. Going the other way, for a feature phone that only plays the old format, use MP4 to 3GP.
3GP to MP4 questions
Why does my 3GP video play without sound on my computer?
Phones of that era usually recorded speech with the AMR-NB codec, at 8 kHz in mono. Chrome, Firefox and many desktop players do not decode AMR, so the picture plays and the sound stays silent. The MP4 gets AAC audio, which every current player supports.
Can the MP4 be sharper than the original 3GP?
No. A 176 × 144 clip holds only about 25,000 pixels per frame, and the converter keeps that size because enlarging only stretches what is there. The MP4 will look as sharp as the original did, with fewer decoding problems.
Will the MP4 be smaller than the 3GP file?
Usually it is about the same or a little larger. H.264 compresses the picture more efficiently than H.263, but AAC at 128 kbps uses more bits than 12.2 kbps AMR speech. Choose 96 kbps under Audio bitrate if size matters; voices still sound clear.
How do I get 3GP videos off an old Nokia phone?
Most Nokia handsets stored camera clips on the microSD card in a folder such as Videos or DCIM, which a card reader shows like any USB drive. Without a card, Nokia PC Suite or a Bluetooth transfer was the usual route; once the files are on a computer, upload them here.
Is a .3g2 file converted the same way?
Yes. 3G2 is the variant used by CDMA phones on networks such as Verizon and Sprint, and it carries the same kinds of codecs plus EVRC or QCELP voice audio. The converter reads it and writes the same H.264 and AAC MP4.
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