how to make ffmpeg convert files and copy to other folder

Question

I need to convert mp3s from 5 folders to the lower bitrate (192) ones without changing their names. How can I do it? (what command)

Answer 1

ffmpeg cannot convert a file in-place. It must create a new file. If the five folders of mp3 files are all in a single parent folder, run this command from the parent folder.

Depending on how many files you have, this could take forever.

find . -iname "*.mp3" -execdir ffmpeg -i "{}" -ab 192k -map_meta_data 0:0 "{}_new.mp3" \; -execdir mv "{}" "{}.old" \; -execdir mv "{}_new.mp3" "{}" \;

This will find all mp3 files in the current directory and subdirectories, and for each mp3 file it finds:

1. convert the file to the new bitrate (in a file named file_new.mp3)
2. rename the original file to file.mp3.old
3. rename the new file to the original name

In my testing, not all tags were preserved during the conversion. Please test this before you run it on your entire library.