How to Convert FLAC Files in Rekordbox Without Losing Your Playlists

If you collect music in FLAC and use Rekordbox to organize your library, you have probably run into this problem: your playlists are perfect, your cue points are set, your folders are organized - but the moment you walk into a club with older CDJs, none of your FLAC files will play.

This guide covers exactly how to convert your FLAC files to CDJ-compatible formats while keeping your Rekordbox playlists completely intact.

Why FLAC Files Won't Play on Older CDJs

Pioneer CDJs added FLAC support starting with the CDJ-2000NXS2 and CDJ-3000. If you are playing on anything older - CDJ-2000NXS, CDJ-900NXS, CDJ-2000, CDJ-900, or any XDJ model before the XDJ-1000MK2 - FLAC files simply will not load. The CDJ shows the file in the browser but refuses to play it.

The same applies to ALAC (Apple Lossless) and M4A files. These formats are not supported on most club CDJs.

The only formats universally supported across all Pioneer CDJs are MP3, WAV, and AIFF.

The Manual Way: Convert with fre:ac or XLD

The most common approach is to batch-convert your FLAC files using a tool like fre:ac (Windows/Mac) or XLD (Mac). Here is how it works:

1. Open fre:ac or XLD
2. Add your FLAC files
3. Choose MP3 320kbps (or WAV/AIFF) as output format
4. Convert

This gives you a folder full of MP3 files. But now you have a problem.

Why This Breaks Your Playlists

Rekordbox playlists point to specific files on your disk. When you convert a FLAC file to MP3, the new MP3 file is a completely different file in a different location. Rekordbox has no idea it exists.

To get your converted files back into Rekordbox with the same playlist structure, you would need to:

1. Import all the new MP3 files into Rekordbox
2. Recreate every playlist manually
3. Add every track to every playlist in the correct order
4. Do this every time you add new FLAC files to your library

For a library with 50+ playlists and thousands of tracks, this takes hours. Most DJs either give up and play from a laptop, or they stop collecting in FLAC altogether.

The XML Export/Import Workaround

Some DJs try a workaround: export the Rekordbox collection as XML, convert the files, then manually edit the XML to point at the new files. This technically works but requires editing XML by hand, which is error-prone and tedious. One wrong path and Rekordbox silently drops the track.

The Automated Way: Mirrorbox

Mirrorbox connects directly to your Rekordbox library, converts your FLAC files to MP3 (or WAV or AIFF), and rebuilds your playlists automatically. Same structure, same track order, same metadata.

You select which playlists to convert, hit one button, and import the result. Tracks that are already in a compatible format (like MP3) pass through without re-encoding. Tracks you have already converted are cached and reused on future runs.

The entire process takes minutes instead of hours, and you never have to rebuild a playlist by hand.

Related Guides

• FLAC Files Not Playing on CDJ? Here is Why - which CDJs support FLAC and which do not
• Rekordbox Library Management: A Complete Guide - all the tools available for managing your library
• How to Find and Remove Duplicate Tracks in Rekordbox - clean up after converting