BootTuda wrote:

I have over 20 GB of mp3s on my computer.

Not much. Change your perception of "much".

What is the best way to reduce the size of them?

Size is relative, get a bigger harddisk. If it is an old computer that
would choke on a modern disk, then get a pci sata controller and a
bigger, sata, harddisk.

Can I convert them to FLAC files

Yes, back to wave and then to flac, a non-lossy compression. They will
sound about the same and probably be at least three times larger.

or ZIPs

MP3 data are generally not compressible by zip and similar compression
algoriths, because those all work by replacing multiple occurrences of
the same data with a reference pointer to one item.

or is there something better? How can I convert them?

What you can do is to use some software for batch processing of audio
files and then convert all to a lower sampling frequency, say 32 kHz,
and a lower bitrate, say 96 kbit/second. The loss of quality will be
quite similar to one in recording on compact cassette but for wallpaper
music it may be acceptable.

Which is why the generally agreed best advice is: get a bigger disk.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

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