What is ALAC and how is it different from FLAC?

Both are lossless compression schemes that store the exact samples while making the file smaller than an uncompressed WAV. ALAC is Apple's, used inside M4A files, and FLAC is the open alternative that plays far more widely. Choose ALAC when Apple software needs to read it natively, and FLAC when portability matters more.

Does converting to ALAC improve quality?

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding. Lossless only means the file describes the samples exactly; it cannot recover detail removed by an earlier lossy encode. Encoding an MP3 to ALAC produces a much larger file containing the same lossy audio, which gains nothing.

Will my cover art and tags transfer?

Not in this tool. Every direction excludes video and image streams so that attached cover art cannot confuse the stream mapping, and metadata is not carried across. If the finished file needs its title, artist or art, those are set afterwards with the tag editor.

Which target should I pick to leave the Apple ecosystem?

FLAC if you want lossless and broad compatibility, or MP3 if the destination is a legacy player that will not take FLAC. WAV is the right answer when the file is going into an editor, because uncompressed audio avoids any question about decoder support in the software you are about to use.

Why is only one file handled at a time?

Because these conversions depend on an unusual codec path where failures are more informative than speed, and reporting them one at a time keeps the message specific to the file that failed. A batch of files means running the conversion repeatedly, or encoding duplicates of a single large file rather than a library.

ALAC/M4A Lossless Converter

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ALAC/M4A Lossless Converter moves audio into or out of Apple's lossless codec, which lives inside an M4A container. It encodes to ALAC, or takes an existing ALAC file back out to WAV, FLAC, AAC or MP3.

What is ALAC/M4A Lossless Converter?

Drop a file, choose one of five targets and convert. The panel reports progress while it runs and presents the finished file with its name, its size and a download control.

The five targets and what each writes:

ALAC inside an M4A container, the lossless target that Apple software reads natively.
WAV, meaning lossless and uncompressed PCM, the right choice when the result will be edited.
FLAC, meaning lossless and compressed, which is smaller than WAV and readable well beyond Apple's ecosystem.
AAC inside an M4A container at 256 kilobits per second, the compact lossy option.
MP3 at 192 kilobits per second, the universal lossy fallback.
A drop zone accepting m4a, mp4, alac, aac, wav, flac, mp3 and caf files, plus a progress bar and a clear control.

The conversion runs through a bundled encoder core that carries Apple's lossless encoder, and every direction excludes video and image streams. That guard is not incidental: an M4A file often contains cover art as an attached picture, and leaving it in place confuses the mapping between what goes into the decoder and what comes out. The codec matters when choosing a target. ALAC is genuinely lossless and reduces file size compared with packing the same audio into a WAV, but FLAC is the more portable lossless choice because it is readable far outside Apple's platforms, and both are far larger than the AAC or MP3 targets. Converting from a lossy source into ALAC does not create lossless audio; it only produces a lossless container for the lossy material, which is a common misunderstanding worth stating plainly. Bit depth and sample rate come from the source rather than from a setting here, so the lossless targets preserve whatever the input carried and the lossy targets keep the same rate while discarding detail.

What the conversion does not give you:

ALAC output is effectively an Apple ecosystem format, so portability is better served by FLAC unless you specifically need it.
Metadata is not carried across in this tool's conversions, so titles, artists and cover art have to be set again afterwards.
Protected files are not converted, and the error message says the file may be corrupt or use an unsupported codec.
The lossy targets have fixed settings: AAC at 256 kilobits per second and MP3 at 192, with no ladder to choose from.
One file per run, so a library means repeating the process rather than dropping a folder.
Encoding to a lossless format cannot improve a lossy source, and the file will simply be larger.

Use it in one of two directions. Encode to ALAC when a file has to live in an Apple library natively, or decode from ALAC when the material needs to leave that ecosystem and play somewhere else. Keep the conversion count as low as possible: a journey through two lossy steps is worse than one, and a lossless target does not undo loss that happened earlier. One conversion in the right direction beats a chain of them.

How to use ALAC/M4A Lossless Converter

Drop an M4A or ALAC file into the panel, or any audio you want encoded into lossless ALAC.
Choose the target: ALAC in M4A, WAV, FLAC, AAC in M4A, or MP3.
Press convert and let the progress bar finish; the encoder core may load before the work starts.
Download the new file from the result row, and set metadata again afterwards if the file needs it.

When to use ALAC/M4A Lossless Converter vs related tools

ALAC/M4A Lossless Converter is the tool when the codec in question is Apple's own lossless format, in either direction. WMA/M4B/CAF Decoder covers the neighbouring job of rescuing files from legacy or audiobook containers, and FLAC Converter is the more portable lossless destination when Apple support is not a requirement. For a general change of format, Audio Format Converter exposes the whole grid with its quality controls.

Privacy & Security

This tool runs entirely in your browser — no data ever leaves your device. There is no server round-trip, no upload, no logging, and no account required. Your input is processed locally using client-side JavaScript and is never stored, transmitted, or accessible to anyone else. When you close the tab, everything disappears.