Convert FLAC to M4A

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Converting FLAC to M4A is free: drop your FLAC above, hit convert, and download the M4A. Files delete themselves within an hour.

Converting FLAC to M4A trades perfection for portability: your FLAC keeps every sample it was born with, while M4A is built for sounding great anywhere in the Apple ecosystem. At a sensible bitrate the difference is genuinely hard to hear, but it's a one-way door: hold on to the FLAC original if it's precious, because no M4A can hand those samples back.

FYI

One-way door: M4A is lossy, so this conversion throws data away to get small. Keep the FLAC original if you might ever need full quality again.

Why flip FLAC to M4A

FLAC is the audiophile's handshake: CD-perfect sound at roughly half the shelf space. It was born in 2001, Josh Coalson; now kept by the open Xiph.Org Foundation, and its real weak spot is fitting in pockets: lossless is still large: and charming Apple's own apps.

M4A is AAC in Apple's favorite outfit: the audio-only MP4 your iPhone speaks natively. An MP4 container holding only audio: usually AAC, occasionally Apple's lossless ALAC. That makes it the right destination when what you need is sounding great anywhere in the Apple ecosystem.

How to convert FLAC to M4A

1
Drop your FLAC file into the flipper above, or click to browse for it.
2
Check the output format: M4A is already selected for you.
3
Hit Convert, give it a moment, then download your new M4A.

FLAC vs M4A, side by side

	FLAC	M4A
Born	2001, Josh Coalson; now kept by the open Xiph.Org Foundation	2003, popularized by Apple's iTunes Store
Type	audio · lossless	audio · lossy
Best for	archiving music with zero quality loss and a genuine size saving	sounding great anywhere in the Apple ecosystem
Weak spot	fitting in pockets: lossless is still large: and charming Apple's own apps	older Windows software and stubborn car stereos that expect a .mp3
Typical size	around 5 MB per minute: half of WAV, five times an MP3	like AAC: better-than-MP3 sound at about 1 MB per minute
Plays on	Hi-fi gear, Android, VLC, most desktop players; iTunes and Apple Music look away.	iPhone, Mac and iTunes natively; most modern Android and Windows apps too.

Questions people ask

Will converting FLAC to M4A lose quality?

A little, by design: M4A is a lossy format. At 192 kbps or above most people can't tell the difference, but the discarded data can't be recovered later.

Will the M4A file be bigger or smaller than my FLAC?

Dramatically smaller. FLAC runs around 5 MB per minute: half of WAV, five times an MP3; M4A comes in at like AAC: better-than-MP3 sound at about 1 MB per minute.

Where will the M4A file play?

iPhone, Mac and iTunes natively; most modern Android and Windows apps too. That's the usual reason people leave FLAC behind: M4A simply opens in more of the places that matter.

How long does FLAC to M4A conversion take?

Seconds for most files: audio is light work. A long recording might take a minute; your file auto-deletes from our servers within an hour either way.

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