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MP3 to MP4 with an image, free, in your browser.

Turn an MP3 and a cover image into an MP4 for YouTube, free, in your browser. Pick the song, add a picture, download the video. Nothing is uploaded: the file is made on your own computer.

· Settings from YouTube Help

Preview · 1920 × 1080 · the video is this picture for the whole song

MP3 to MP4

Nothing is uploaded

Pick a song to start. Nothing is uploaded: the video is made in this browser.

SongMP3 · WAV · M4A · FLAC
Picture (optional)JPG · PNG · WebP
Shape

1920 × 1080 · A YouTube video

Around the picture

A soft copy of the picture fills the edges

YouTube Help · read 3 October 2026

Why YouTube needs a video file.

YouTube's upload page takes video files only. A picture held for the length of the song is the smallest video that does the job.

“Audio files, like MP3, WAV, or PCM files, can't be uploaded to create a YouTube video.”
YouTube Help · Supported YouTube file formats

The same page lists what it does take: MOV, MPEG-4, MP4, AVI, WMV, WebM, FLV and a few more. An audio file only goes in as an extra language track for a video that's already there.

YouTube Music takes MP3, FLAC, M4A, OGG and WMA, but into your own library: “You are the only one who can play the music you have uploaded” (YouTube Music Help). That's a locker, not a release.

So for a song on your channel that anyone can play, you need a video. When a distributor delivers your release, YouTube makes the same thing itself and calls it an Art Track: “the sound recording and the album art” (YouTube Help). This tool makes that file for your own channel.

Make the MP4Make it move instead

YouTube Help · read 3 October 2026

The settings, next to YouTube's.

YouTube publishes the encoding it recommends for uploads. The tool follows it in all but two places, and says why.

Container

This tool

MP4, index at the front, no edit lists

  • YouTube recommendsMP4, “moov atom at the front of the file (Fast Start)”, no edit lists

Video codec

This tool

H.264, progressive, High profile (Main or Baseline in a browser without High)

  • YouTube recommendsH.264, progressive, High profile

Frame rate

This tool

24 fps, the lowest common rate

  • YouTube recommendsThe rate it was recorded at. Common: 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, 60

Keyframes

This tool

One every 2 seconds (why below)

  • YouTube recommendsClosed GOP, half the frame rate

B-frames

This tool

None: the browser's encoder doesn't make them

  • YouTube recommends2 consecutive

Bitrate

This tool

The same, as a ceiling. A still needs far less

  • YouTube recommends1080p: 8 Mbps · 720p: 5 Mbps (SDR, standard frame rate)

Audio

This tool

AAC-LC, 192 kbps, stereo, 48 kHz. Opus, 160 kbps, where the browser has no AAC

  • YouTube recommendsAAC-LC or Opus, stereo, 48 kHz

Shape

This tool

16:9 at 1080p or 720p, 1:1, 9:16

  • YouTube recommends16:9 is standard on a computer; vertical and square adapt

YouTube · YouTube recommended upload encoding settings

Why 24 fps

A still picture would look the same at one frame a second, and that would be quicker to encode. But YouTube's list of common frame rates starts at 24, and nothing on its help pages covers lower ones. A file inside the documented settings is the safer upload, and the cost is small: the encoder spends almost nothing on a frame that matches the last one.

Why a keyframe every 2 seconds

YouTube asks for a keyframe every half second of video. A keyframe stores the whole picture again, so for a picture that never changes, half-second keyframes made our 1080p file 3.5 times bigger (29.7 against 8.5 MB a minute) for no visible gain. YouTube encodes every upload again for playback, so the spacing in your file doesn't reach viewers. Two seconds is what Loopwalk's own video export uses.

AAC, or Opus

Chrome on a Mac encodes AAC, the first choice. A browser without an AAC encoder gets Opus, and the tool tells you before you start. YouTube lists Opus as an accepted audio codec. Chrome, Edge and Firefox play Opus in MP4, and so does Safari from version 17 on macOS (WebKit). Some other players and video editors read only AAC.

What to expect

Our own runs: a 3:20 song and a cover picture, each file checked with ffprobe.

ShapeFileMade in
16:9 · 1920 × 108029.7 MB15 s
16:9 · 1280 × 72019.7 MB14 s
1:1 · 1080 × 108023.3 MB14 s
9:16 · 1080 × 192030.0 MB15 s

Measured on 3 October 2026 in Chrome 154 on a Mac with Apple silicon. Times depend on the machine, and on whether the browser has a hardware video encoder; the file sizes depend on the picture.

Make the MP4See a YouTube visualizer

Which shape for which upload.

One song, three shapes. The picture is never cropped: it sits whole in the frame, on a blurred copy of itself or on black.

  • 16:9

    1920 × 1080 or 1280 × 720

    A normal YouTube video. YouTube calls 16:9 “the standard aspect ratio for YouTube on a computer” (YouTube Help). Pick 720p for a smaller file on a slow connection.

  • 9:16

    1080 × 1920

    Vertical, for Shorts and Reels. A Short is “up to 3 minutes” with “a square or vertical aspect ratio” (YouTube Help), and the tool uses the whole file, so trim the song first.

  • 1:1

    1080 × 1080

    Square, for feeds that crop everything else. A square cover fills it edge to edge with no background showing.

Leave the picture out and the video is a plain dark frame with the song's name on it, or the title you type. Title and artist are optional on every shape: they sit under the picture, in the site's own typeface.

Make the MP4See one that moves

Their help pages · read 3 October 2026

Other ways to put a song on YouTube.

This tool isn't the only route, and for some releases it isn't the best one.

Your distributor's Art Track

Release through DistroKid, TuneCore or CD Baby with YouTube Music in the store list and YouTube makes an Art Track for each song, on an automatic “Topic” channel. DistroKid: your music appears “in YouTube Music … and on YouTube's main video website as Art Tracks” (DistroKid Help). CD Baby “delivers Art Tracks for every song” (CD Baby). TuneCore says it “usually takes 1-2 weeks” to go live (TuneCore Help).

You don't make or edit it. DistroKid says the Topic channel and Art Tracks “are generated by YouTube and cannot be edited/claimed”, and TuneCore that neither it “nor the artist has access to edit anything about the channel, including video descriptions”.

The better pick when the song is going out through a distributor anyway: it costs you nothing more, it's what YouTube Music plays, and it earns from streams there.

Your own upload

A video you upload lives on your channel with your title, description and thumbnail, on the day you choose, and you can share the link before the Art Track shows up. The two can live side by side: DistroKid says it's “beneficial to also have your music in its Topic channel”, and with an Official Artist Channel your Art Tracks are linked to your own channel too.

One catch. If your distributor runs Content ID for the song, YouTube can claim your own upload of it. DistroKid lets you allowlist specific videos: “If you opt into YouTube Content ID but want to allow specific videos to use your music without Content ID claims, you can allowlist them” (DistroKid Help). Check your distributor's page before you upload.

ffmpeg, one command

ffmpeg is free, runs offline and has no length limit. The better pick when you have many songs, or a mix longer than 20 minutes. This command gives a file to the same settings, with black bars. We ran it with ffmpeg 4.2 on our test files; the two shortest flags stop the picture running on past the song:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -framerate 24 -i cover.jpg -i song.mp3 \
  -vf "scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:1080:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2" \
  -c:v libx264 -tune stillimage -pix_fmt yuv420p \
  -c:a aac -b:a 192k -ar 48000 \
  -shortest -fflags +shortest -max_interleave_delta 100M -movflags +faststart song.mp4

And YouTube itself? Not for this: its uploader refuses audio files, and YouTube Music uploads stay private to your library (sources above).

Make the MP4Make it move instead

Privacy and limits.

Your song and picture don't leave this browser tab. Here's what that means, and where the tool stops.

  • Nothing is uploaded. The browser reads the song and the picture from your disk, encodes them with its own video and audio encoders (WebCodecs), and joins them into an MP4 in memory. When you press the button the page fetches its own code for writing MP4 files and sends the count below; no request carries your song or your picture.
  • What we count. That the tool ran: the shape, the song's length, the audio type, and whether it worked. Never the file, its name or the title you type.
  • No account, no watermark. The file is yours to upload anywhere.
  • Keep the tab open until the download button shows. Closing it stops the job.
  • Long songs need memory. A 20-minute song decodes to about 460 MB of sound before it's encoded. On a phone, shorter files are safer.
  • SongUp to 20 min · 250 MB
  • Audio typesMP3 · WAV · M4A · FLAC
  • PictureJPG · PNG · WebP · 40 MB
  • OutputMP4 · H.264 · AAC or Opus

Browsers. The tool needs both of the browser's encoders, video and audio. Per MDN, that's Chrome and Edge 94 or later, Firefox 130 or later on a computer, and Safari 26 or later (VideoEncoder, AudioEncoder). Other audio types play where the browser can read them.

Make the MP4Privacy policy

Want the picture to move with the song?

The Vinyl template, Midnight Deck style, rendered by Loopwalk from a song's stems: the record spins and the spectrum round its rim moves with the music

Vinyl · Midnight Deck · our demo song · real export

A still image is fine for a first upload. Want the picture to move with the drums, bass and vocals? Open it in Loopwalk.

Loopwalk splits the song into drums, bass, vocals, guitar, piano and the rest, and each one moves its own part of the picture. In Vinyl your cover is the record's label. The models only listen; a 3D engine draws every frame.

The preview is free on your own song. Video files and stills come with the Unlimited plan. More on that in the music visualizer for YouTube, and on what the format is in what an official visualizer is.

Open it in LoopwalkTry it on our song

Questions.

Make the MP4Open Loopwalk

Make the still version now. Make it move when you're ready.

Make the still version here, free. When you want the picture to follow the drums, bass and vocals, bring the same song to Loopwalk and preview it free.

Make the MP4Open it in Loopwalk

Sources · read

YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC. Loopwalk is not affiliated with it.