AIFF to OPUS Converter

AIFF to Opus Converter

AIFF is Apple's 1988 Audio Interchange File Format: an uncompressed container holding linear PCM, which is why a CD-quality track runs to roughly 10 MB per minute. Opus is the modern general-purpose codec standardised by the IETF as RFC 6716 in 2012 and maintained by Xiph.Org, designed to cover everything from 6 kb/s speech to 510 kb/s music in one format. Converting AIFF to Opus is the textbook way to make an Opus file — a single encode straight from a lossless master, with no earlier compression for the encoder to fight.

AIFF Format at a Glance

Opus Format at a Glance

What Changes When You Convert

The AIFF holds every sample the recorder captured; Opus does not, and cannot. What Opus does instead is spend a fixed budget of bits on the parts of the signal your ears actually use, which is why a file roughly a tenth the size can be difficult to distinguish from the master in ordinary listening. Two consequences worth planning around: the discarded detail never comes back, so the AIFF stays your editing copy; and because Opus codes fullband audio at 48 kHz internally, a 44.1 kHz source is resampled as part of the encode rather than carried through untouched.

How to Convert AIFF to Opus

1. Upload Your AIFF File: Drag and drop your .aiff or .aif file onto the page, or click "+ Add Files" to browse. Several files can be queued and converted in one batch with the same settings.
2. Choose a Quality Preset or Bitrate: Open Advanced Options. Under File Compression you can set a Quality Preset (Highest through Lowest), pick a band under Variable Bitrate — the Opus list runs from 6k–24k up to 320k–510k — or type an exact rate under Custom Bitrate or Constant Bitrate.
3. Adjust Channel, Sample Rate, or Trim: Audio Channel and Audio Sample Rate stay on their original values unless you downmix or resample; Trim exports a start point and duration instead of the whole file; Specific file size and File Size Percentage target an output size directly.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save your .opus file, or download a batch as a ZIP. No sign-up, no watermark.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much of the AIFF is actually discarded when I encode to Opus?

Numerically, most of it: a 16-bit / 44.1 kHz stereo AIFF carries 1,411 kbps, and a typical Opus encode keeps 96–128 of those kilobits per second. Perceptually the picture is different, because the bits Opus drops are the ones psychoacoustic modelling says you are least likely to hear. The important structural point is that this is a first-generation encode from lossless PCM — the encoder is not trying to re-compress something an earlier codec already damaged, which is when lossy artifacts stack up audibly.

What bitrate should I choose for Opus?

Match it to the material. Speech, interviews, and audiobooks are clean far lower than music — Opus was designed to stay intelligible down into the tens of kilobits. For stereo music, the 96k–128k band is the usual target and is where Opus is hardest to separate from the source. Go higher, into 160k–256k, only for dense material such as massed applause, harpsichord, or heavily layered electronic mixes. Opus tops out at 510 kb/s, but for stereo playback there is little reason to go near it.

Which players and browsers open a .opus file?

Browser-support tracking puts Opus near 96% globally: full support in Chrome from version 33, Firefox from 15, Edge from 14, and iOS Safari from 18.4, while desktop Safari is still recorded as partial. On the desktop, VLC, foobar2000, and most modern media players handle .opus without extra codecs, and Android has supported it for years. If a file has to open on an older Apple system or an unknown device, AIFF to MP3 or AIFF to M4A is the safer target.

Is .opus the same thing as .ogg?

They share a container but not a codec. Ogg is the wrapper; Vorbis and Opus are two different codecs that can travel inside it. A .opus file is Ogg encapsulation carrying an Opus stream, and the distinct extension exists so players and toolchains can tell immediately which decoder they need. If you specifically need a classic Vorbis file — game engines and older Ogg tooling often do — use AIFF to OGG instead.

How much smaller will the Opus file be than the AIFF?

This is arithmetic rather than an estimate. Uncompressed 16-bit / 44.1 kHz stereo PCM is a fixed 1,411 kbps, or about 10 MB per minute; Opus at 128 kbps is about 0.9 MB per minute, and at 96 kbps about 0.7 MB. So a five-minute AIFF of roughly 50 MB lands near 4.5 MB at 128 kbps. Since Opus is variable by default, dense passages spend more bits and quiet ones fewer, so the finished file will sit close to that figure rather than exactly on it.

Does Opus preserve the tags and loop markers in my AIFF?

Tags are worth checking after conversion rather than assuming. Opus files carry metadata in Vorbis-comment style fields, which is a well-defined system, but AIFF's own metadata lives in optional chunks that many tools write inconsistently. Loop points and instrument chunks — an AIFF feature some samplers rely on — have no equivalent in an Opus stream at all, so if a sample library depends on them, keep the AIFF as the working format.

Can I convert the Opus file back to AIFF later?

You can regenerate an AIFF, but not the original audio. Decoding Opus back to PCM gives you a full-size uncompressed file that still sounds like the Opus encode, because the detail the encoder discarded is not recorded anywhere. Treat Opus as a delivery format: keep the AIFF master, or make a AIFF to FLAC copy if you want something smaller that is still bit-exact.

Are my uploaded files kept private?

Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — never shared, never made public, with no sign-up and no watermark. Because AIFF is uncompressed, the slow part of a large job is the upload itself; trimming to the section you need before converting is the quickest way to speed it up.