Convert 3GP to MKV Online
Convert legacy 3GP mobile phone videos to the modern Matroska MKV container.
.3gp · up to 100 MB
What you can do
3GP to MKV: old phone archive in the modern standard
Family archive
Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson videos preserved in MKV for decades to come.
No quality loss
H.263 and H.264 from 3GP are encapsulated in MKV without re-encoding. Identical quality.
Plex and Kodi ready
MKV integrates perfectly in your media library with metadata and thumbnails.
100% private
Your family videos are converted in your browser. They never leave your device.
How it works
Three steps, no hassle
Upload your 3GP file
Drag or select your .3gp or .3g2 file. Videos from Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, or any mobile phone from 2002–2012. No signup.
Convert to MKV
The H.263 or H.264 video and AAC-LC audio from 3GP are encapsulated in Matroska. No quality loss in stream transfer.
Download your MKV
MKV file ready for Plex, Kodi, or any player. Your family archive preserved in the modern standard.
FAQ
Got questions?
3GP (3GPP file format) was developed by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) consortium in 2001 as part of the 3G mobile telephony standard (technical specification TS 26.234). 3GP is a simplified version of MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 12) optimized for the limitations of phones at the time: slow processors, small screens, and limited storage. Early camera phones from Nokia (Series 60, 2002), Motorola (RAZR, 2004), and Sony Ericsson recorded in 3GP with H.263 and AMR or AAC-LC audio. 3G2 is a 3GP variant developed by 3GPP2 for CDMA2000 networks.
No, as long as the video stream is H.263 or H.264: both are encapsulated directly in Matroska without re-encoding. Quality is identical to the original. AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) audio, used in some very old 3GP files, may need re-encoding to AAC since AMR has variable support in modern players. AAC-LC audio transfers directly without re-encoding.
Family videos recorded on Nokia, Motorola, or Sony Ericsson phones between 2002 and 2012 are irreplaceable: first steps, birthdays, holidays. MKV is the container with the best long-term support: fully open (public spec at matroska.org), cross-platform, and accepted by all modern players. Plex Photos and Plex Media Server's video library index MKV with complete metadata. 3GP has decreasing support in modern software.
3GP videos from the Nokia/Motorola era (2002–2007) are typically very low resolution: 176x144 pixels (QCIF) or 320x240 (QVGA). Newer 3GP files (2008–2012) can reach 640x480 (VGA) or even 720p on high-end devices. These low resolutions are a historical characteristic of the archive, not a conversion issue: the resulting MKV will have exactly the same resolution as the original 3GP.
Plex Media Server has a Personal Videos section that can index MKV family videos with basic metadata (creation date, duration). For Plex to correctly organize videos by date, it's helpful for the filename to include the date (e.g., 20051225_christmas.mkv). MKVs converted from 3GP preserve the original file's timestamp metadata, which Plex can read.
3G2 (3GPP2) is a variant developed by the 3GPP2 consortium for CDMA2000 networks (used primarily in the US with carriers like Verizon and Sprint, and in Japan with KDDI). Technically, 3G2 is very similar to 3GP with some differences in container atoms and supported codecs. Converting 3G2 to MKV follows the same process as 3GP and produces equivalent results.
Convert 3GP to MKV: preserve the old phone archive in Matroska
The 3GP format is one of the first video formats for mobile devices, created by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) consortium in 2001 as part of the 3G telephony standard (technical specification TS 26.234, initial revision at the 3GPP meeting in December 2001 in Singapore). 3GP is an optimized version of the MPEG-4 Part 12 container (ISO base media file format), with restrictions designed for the limited resources of contemporary phones: the first camera phones recorded at QCIF (176x144 pixels) with H.263 video and AMR audio at 12.2 kbps. Nokia was the first manufacturer to launch a 3GP video recording phone with the Series 60 on the Nokia 7650 (released June 2002). Mass adoption followed with the Nokia 6600 (2003), Sony Ericsson K700i (2004), and Motorola RAZR V3 (2004). Between 2002 and 2010, these devices recorded tens of millions of hours of family video: first steps, birthdays, school trips, sporting events that exist in no other medium.
Preserving family 3GP videos in MKV has urgency beyond technical convenience. 3GP has decreasing support in modern software: Windows 11 does not play 3GP natively without installing additional codecs, many cloud storage platforms do not generate 3GP thumbnails, and support in smart TV players and home streaming systems is inconsistent. MKV (Matroska), with its fully public specification at matroska.org and universal adoption in VLC, Plex, Kodi, Jellyfin, mpv, and virtually any software player produced after 2010, ensures these family videos remain accessible for decades. Conversion preserves original quality: H.263 and H.264 streams from 3GP are encapsulated directly in Matroska without re-encoding, maintaining exactly the same pixels from the video recorded 20 years ago.
Convertir.ai executes the 3GP to MKV conversion in the browser using FFmpeg.wasm. The technical process varies by 3GP content: for H.264 video and AAC-LC audio (newer 3GP files, 2007–2012), the operation is a pure remux where the MP4 atoms of the 3GP are reorganized into Matroska's EBML structure without any video or audio decoding. For H.263 video and AMR audio (older 3GP files, 2002–2007), H.263 video is encapsulated directly in MKV (Matroska supports H.263 with codec ID V_H263), while AMR audio may be re-encoded to AAC-LC to guarantee playback in Plex and Kodi, which have inconsistent AMR support. The result is an MKV file that preserves the family video at the same quality as the original 3GP, directly integrable into Plex Media Server via the Personal Videos feature or any Kodi library.