Convert M4A to FLAC

Upload a M4A file and get a FLAC back. No signup, no watermark, no limit on how many.

Drop a M4A file here, or click to choose one

What a M4A file is

M4A is an MPEG-4 container holding AAC audio — the same codec as a bare .aac file, wrapped so that players, tags and cover art all behave.

Where you run into it: iTunes and Apple Music purchases, voice memos, Zoom and Teams recordings, most phone-recorded audio.

What it costs you: Outside Apple's ecosystem support is good but not universal, and a few older tools still refuse the extension on sight.

What you get as FLAC

FLAC compresses losslessly: it typically halves a WAV and gives back bit-for-bit the same audio when decoded. It is free, open, and widely supported outside Apple's world.

Where you run into it: Archived rips, Bandcamp and Qobuz downloads, anyone who keeps a music library they intend to still have in ten years.

What it costs you: Half of enormous is still large, and some hardware — car head units especially — will not touch it.

What this conversion actually does

Worth being clear about: converting M4A to FLAC does not restore anything. What M4A threw away is gone, and wrapping the result in a lossless format simply preserves the damaged version perfectly. The file will get several times larger for no gain in sound. Do it when a tool or a workflow demands FLAC input — many editors and DAWs do — and not in the hope of better audio.

How to convert M4A to FLAC

  1. Drop your M4A file onto the box above, or click it and pick the file.
  2. Choose a quality if you want one — the default is the best the source can support.
  3. Press Convert. The file goes to our server, ffmpeg does the work, and the result comes straight back.
  4. Your FLAC file downloads automatically. Both copies on the server are deleted as soon as the response is sent.

Frequently asked questions

Is converting M4A to FLAC free?

Yes, entirely, and there is no cap on how many files you convert. No account, no watermark, no trial.

Does converting M4A to FLAC lose quality?

It does not lose anything further, but it does not recover anything either. FLAC will store your M4A audio perfectly, damage and all. Converting this way for sound quality is the single most common misunderstanding about audio formats.

How big will the FLAC file be?

Considerably larger — usually five to ten times the M4A. A lossless format stores every sample, and it has no way of knowing that some of them were reconstructed from a lossy file.

Can I convert FLAC back to M4A?

Yes — FLAC is one of the formats this converter writes, so the reverse page exists at /flac-to-m4a/. Remember that going back and forth between two lossy formats degrades the audio a little each time.

Is my file uploaded anywhere?

The file is uploaded to do the conversion — nothing here runs in your browser — and both your upload and the converted result are deleted the moment the file is sent back. Nothing is stored and nothing is logged beyond the request itself.

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