What is cda file? How to convert cda to mp3 files?

What is cda file?

Files with .cda extension are not audio files, but are the virtual files generated by Microsoft Windows for each audio track in audio disc. cda is an abbreviation Compact Disc Audio. cda files are generally of 44 bytes in size and contains information about from where does particular audio track in CD starts. As these files are not the actual audio files you cannot play these files using player like VLC and copying these files to your mobile devices or computers is not simply enough to play music.

How to convert .cda files to .mp3 files?

You cannot convert .cda files to .mp3 files by any ways, but you can extract audio files from CD using cda files. The process of extracting audio files from disc using cda files is known as RIP process. You can RIP CDs using windows media player or various softwares that are available for free on internet. In the following section I have explained how to RIP the CD using windows media player.

RIP an audio disc using windows media player

1. Insert the audio disc into computer CD tray and open Windows Media Player.
2. Open Tools menu from widows media player using shortcut keys Alt+t.
3. From tools menu click on "Options...", it will open a dialog box with various option.
4. select "Rip Music" option from given options as shown in image.
5. Set the location where you want to store your extracted files from rip process.
6. Select the file extension that you want the extracted files to be in, by default it is wma extension which you can set to mp3 file.
7. There are other options available like automatically Rip CD when cda files are found in CD and eject disc when completed, you can leave this options to default or as you prefer.
8. Save settings using Apply button.
9. Now open media player in full windows mode and you will see the option to Rip CD.
10. Select the files that you want to extract and click the Rip CD option. 
11. Windows media player will extract files and save it in location specified in step 5.

There are software that are available on internet for free and allow you to Rip audio CD using cda files. Here are the two commonly used CD ripper software which can be downloaded from the links given below:

1.  FreeRip
2.  FairStars CD Ripper