Merge multiples MP3 files into one

27 Responses to Merge multiples MP3 files into one

1. Carsten says:

   June 28, 2005 at 11:03 am

   Funny idea, but I tried anyway! Instead of the old dos “copy” I used the unix “cat” command with pipe:

   cat file1 >> newfile
   cat file2 >> newfile
   etc.

   (use loop instead of list: for i in *.mp3; do; done)

   “>>” is the token for “append” file instead of overwriting file.

   And it works! The new combined mp3-file can be played on xmms.

   Never thought it would be so easy!

   Reply
2. anon says:

   July 24, 2005 at 3:53 pm

   Or in the future, you can have Cdex do it while it rips:

   http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/faqs.php#cdex18

   What you can do is to to select several tracks, and hit the partial track copy, with this option you can select a range which is ripped/encoded into one big file.

   Reply
3. Armjamil says:

   August 4, 2005 at 10:46 am

   I tried it on xp and it worked great!
   This has solved my problem big time! I was searching for ActiveX dlls to do the same for quite long for my site.

   BTW, syntax on XP is:
   > copy file1.mp3 + file2.mp3 + file3.mp3 end_result.mp3

   Thanks for the info. ajohnson

   Reply
4. dave31175 says:

   February 2, 2006 at 4:07 pm

   Hmmm, I tried Armjamil’s XP syntax but it didn’t work for me. I used it to combine 3 mp3′s totaling 11MB and the output file was only 3KB. Well then, I’m off to search for another solution…

   Reply
5. MadEagle says:

   February 15, 2006 at 3:07 am

   To do it with Audacity just open both files you want to merge. In the first file set the cursor to the end (Edit->Move Cursor->End of Track). In the second file select everything (CTRL-A) and copy it (CTRL-C). Go back to the first file, paste the second file (CTRL-V) and you are ready to go. To do it with 50 files though is a PITA, so your way may be better.

   Reply
6. Dean says:

   March 15, 2006 at 12:08 am

   FYI the XP syntax above needs the /b binary switch inserted, as described in the original post, and then it works great, almost instantly.

   Reply
7. Jim says:

   April 7, 2006 at 11:27 am

   The windows xp command needs the /B not /b.

   Reply
8. James says:

   May 10, 2006 at 12:59 pm

   Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This was so easy and here I thought I was going to have to buy something…

   Thanks again!

   Reply
9. balamaci says:

   May 21, 2006 at 11:35 am

   can u belive there are programs out there who need registering – money payed to do this. I just couldn’t belive it would work, but i tried it and it does. If u have more mp3 files just put them into a directory and type:

   copy /b *.* big_mp3_file.mp3

   Reply
10. Davor says:

    April 14, 2007 at 3:25 am

    It’s a very nice way to merge files. There is one problem. The headers of mp3-files are also merged.

    What those “have to register and/or pay” programs do is remove the header of the next file(s) and adjust the header of the first file. There is alot of info in the header, like ID3tags, audio length, … that should be removed or adjusted…

    Reply
11. AgapeDisciple says:

    November 17, 2007 at 11:40 am

    Wow! Thanks alot! I was trying to figure out an easy way to do this with audacity as well. I made a one line .bat file with balamaci’s comment. Now all I have to do is run the file in any directory with all my files in it!

    copy /b *.* big_mp3_file.mp3

    I’m using Audacity to resample/save it. Hopefully that will clean up the header issue.

    Reply
12. Ebrahim says:

    December 24, 2007 at 5:33 am

    Nice!
    I do it using cat:
    $ cat *.mp3 >big.mp3

    Reply
13. Dan says:

    January 3, 2008 at 7:32 am

    Thanks very much. I was just about to give up when I found your tip. (Thanks too to Armjamil for the XP tip and to AgapeDesciple for reminding me about bat files.)

    Reply
14. David M says:

    March 3, 2008 at 2:57 am

    Thanks very much for the original info – works a treat. If you ensure files are sequentially numbered it will ensure they are appended in the right sequence.
    Note to dave31175 – no doubt he has now solved or given up, but if you copy without the /b modifier, it will not copy MP3 correctly. You must use /b after the copy command
    ie copy /b *.* test.mp3
    Again thanks for the original suggestion!!!

    Reply
15. JZ says:

    April 2, 2008 at 8:22 am

    Glad to find this info. I needed to merge a bunch of MP3s to accompany a freeware slideshow app which will play a single MP3 while the slides rotate.

    Couple of things to note:
    - you can easily edit the ID3/ID2 tags using a free player like Winamp
    - I needed to add a break between each track, so I created an MP3 of 2 seconds of silence using Audacity. Put this between each track (and at the start or end if you plan to loop the audio) to create some breathing room.

    Thanks again…

    Reply
16. JM says:

    May 20, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    AWESOME!!! thanks for the solutions guys.

    Reply
17. Duane says:

    September 18, 2008 at 7:12 am

    I love the Internet and I love you guys thank you so much… very cool.

    Reply
18. Bob S says:

    September 29, 2008 at 2:01 am

    THANK YOU, THANK YOU! How easy. 3 1/2 years and it still does a fine job in Win XP.

    Here is what worked for us (remembering that DOS files need to have file names of 8 characters or less, and we used the lower case “b”):

    copy /b file1.mp3 + file2.mp3 end_file.mp3

    WOO-HOO!

    Reply
19. Daniel J. Dawson says:

    October 27, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    The thing is i want to actually mix the sound files so they are one file but they play together. One file has words but it needs music to it, so i just want to combine the two audion mp3 files and intertwine them.

    Reply
20. Dan Philpott says:

    November 2, 2008 at 9:16 am

    Trick I use with this is to first use id3remover to clean the MP3 files first. If there are multiple directories (e.g., series of CDs for a book) I use the following command from the directory where the subdirectories contain the MP3 files:

    for /f “delims==” %A in (‘dir /on /ad /b’) do copy /B “%A\*.mp3″ “%A.mp3″

    Very neat and fast.

    Reply
21. Jay says:

    December 11, 2008 at 10:06 pm

    Sorry, this may be a dumb question, but I’ve gone into DOS and can add those files… then it lists my files’ names and says 1 file copied… but where does the end_result.mp3 file end up?

    Reply
22. Yogi says:

    May 3, 2009 at 7:37 am

    The command line worked incredibly well however what I am trying to find is a way to merge them without the breaks in between the tracks….if anyone has a suggestion it would be helpful

    Thanks

    Reply
23. najduch says:

    September 20, 2009 at 2:31 am

    After that copying, the big mp3 file is shredded by multiple headers from input mp3s. To fix the stream and write correct time for it you need use Foobar2000 (simply and great mp3 player). For CBR mp3s Right click on big mp3 file than choose Utils and next “Rebuild MP3 Stream”. For VBR mp3s use Utils -> “Fix MP3 VBR header”. And for mixed input mp3s use both methods Enjoy.

    Reply
24. Lee says:

    June 18, 2010 at 9:09 am

    If you have multiple files then you would need to use append, right? Otherwise each file would write over the target file. Try this instead:
    $ cat *.mp3 >>big.mp3

    Those of you who are looking to get this done for free could try a Linux test drive CD, they can access a Windows drive and let you do Linux commands like this on them (using an Xterm console).

    > Nice!
    > I do it using cat:
    > $ cat *.mp3 >big.mp3

    Reply
25. julio says:

    December 29, 2011 at 3:37 am

    Wow! simple solution that works great with Windows 7 thanks

    Reply
26. Quadrillion says:

    February 14, 2013 at 9:04 pm

    WINDOWS 7: Followed the above. Couldn’t have been easier. Recap:

    In windows explorer create a new directory inside the c> directory. Let’s call it “test”. Put the files you want to merge into that directory

    Hit Start, type “cmd” in the box to get to dos prompt. If you find you’re in a dos subdirectory, such as c> windows then type two dots (..) and hit return to get you to c>

    Then type cd_test (use a space instead of the underscore)

    now it looks like this:

    c>test>
    Here’s the syntax

    c>copy_B/_*.*_NEWFILENAME.mp3 (make sure you put spaces where I have used underscores) (hit enter)

    You’re done. Dos has created a new file with an mp3 extension. I just combined 120 files in ten directories. All was copasetic. I am pretty sure it puts the files together in alphanumeric order.

    Win7 DOS will probably allow you to create a batch file. At the prompt type

    edit_merge.bat (hit enter)

    You will be shown a screen. Input the above “copy” command and save it. Next time you won’t have to retype the command every time, you just go to test> and type “merge” (and hit “enter”). Of course you can name the bat file anything you want.

    Keep in mind, you will have to remove the merged file from that directory before you use the bat file again, because it will overwrite the one you created previously.

    Reply
27. Quadrillion says:

    February 14, 2013 at 9:08 pm

    Oops, made a mistake. The command should be typed at the c>test> prompt.

    c>test> copy_B/_*.*_NEWFILENAME.mp3

    Reply