I'm new here, and can't get Audacity to import m4a files. The Lame download won't work. Help?

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to Audacity, I was excited to learn about it, but for the life of me I can’t get it to import m4a files. I recorded something on my iPhone, it records as m4a. Supposedly you need the lame file, and edit>preferences>library is where you’d both download the LAME file and also locate it. I’ve gone to the wiki page (found it from https://lame.buanzo.org/#lamewindl) and I downloaded all the latest ones at the top. Note that I’ve tried to download both the exe file, and the zip file and extracted to folders I know of. libmp3lame-win-3.99.3.zip is the zip file I downloaded, along with others (just troubleshooting).

My Audacity version is 2.4.2 downloaded in August 2020.

Anyway… when I go to library and locate to try to locate the LAME file, it simply won’t find it. I’ve looked both in the program files (x86) “Lame for Audacity” folders, as well as unique folders I made. I exported to both, no matter what, when I click locate it won’t even show me a single file I can click to use.

I even tried using the trick of Shift and 8 (making the *) in the search while locating to just pull up anything, and I see the .dll file, and I select it and click open and still nothing works. I’ve exited Audacity after trying all options, I’ve even uninstalled, re-installed, and also tried deleting the program files folder and re-opening.

This is so frustrating. Somebody please help me out.

2

Lame was for making an MP3 file and is no longer needed.

What you need is the FFMpeg software to extend the number of different sound formats.

Scroll down.

https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/

Koz

3

Hi, I have downloaded the FFMpeg software but I’m still having a hard time getting Audacity to find the file. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I really need some guidance. Thank you.

4

Download and RUN [u]ffmpeg-win-2.2.2.exe[/u] to install it.

You should end-up with a folder called “Ffmpeg For Audacity” and in that folder you should find several files starting with "avcodec-55.dll’. But if all goes as-expected, Audacity should automatically find FFmpeg so you shouldn’t have to look for it.