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One thing I’ve been using my BlackBerry for more and more is taking notes. I used to carry around a small pad and paper, but I’d either forget to bring it with me, or else lose it somewhere along the way. With the BlackBerry, it’s with me all the time. Plus, I’m not going to lose the thing — as easily as a pad and paper, at least. While I do use the MemoPad application frequently for chronicling such things as my to read list, I also leave myself a number of voice notes. While I listen to them right on my BlackBerry, I can understand why people would want to transfer those notes to their computers as MP3 files. That’s what we’re going over today.

Record your voice note

Obviously, the first step is to actually record your voice note. To do that, locate your Voice Notes Recorder application and open it. It’s a pretty simple interface which allows you to hit the record button to start the process. Once you’re done hit the pause button. There you’ll see a list of functions, much like the Camera application. The options to the right are save, send, and delete. You’re going to want the save one, which looks like a folder. Make sure to save it to your memory card. That’s the best an easiest way to extract it from the device.

Connect to computer

Next up is connecting your BlackBerry to your computer, either Mac or PC, via a USB cable. That should bring up a prompt on your BlackBerry asking if you want to enter mass storage mode. Select Yes. Now your computer should display a removable drive which you can explore. Find the directory you saved the voice note under, and drag the file to your desktop. It should be in .AMR format, which is what makes the conversion a pain in the first place.

After this you can disconnect your BlackBerry. Just make sure to eject it before you pull the cord.

Convert and play

The .AMR file you dragged to your desktop will play on a few different audio programs, like QuickTime for the Mac and RealPlayer for Mac or PC. These are relatively easy to use — QuickTime comes with Macs, and RealPlayer can be found here. If all you want to do is listen to the voice note, you can end here. If you want to convert the files to .MP3, read on.

You’ll need to convert the file. If you have QuickTime Pro on your Mac, rather than the standard QuickTime, you can save the file as a .mp4, and then convert to .mp3 by opening the file in iTunes and creating an MP3 version. If you don’t have QuickTime Pro for the Mac, you’ll need software to perform the conversion. I stand by Audacity, which serves many other audio purposes as well.

There are many options for a PC conversion, most of which are free. You can check out Format Factory, which does the job just fine. Googling “.amr to .mp3″ will bring about many more options, in case you feel like checking for something else. In any case, that should leave you with an MP3 of your voice note.

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