FLAC to AIFF Converter

FLAC to AIF Converter

FLAC and AIF are both lossless, so this conversion is about compatibility rather than fidelity. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) squeezes PCM audio down without losing a sample; AIF is Apple's Audio Interchange File Format, which stores that same PCM raw and uncompressed. Samplers, older Mac apps, broadcast systems and some DAW import paths accept AIFF but refuse FLAC — that is the whole reason this converter exists. The audio you get out is the same audio; the file is roughly twice the size.

Before anything else: .aif and .aiff are the same format. The three-letter spelling is a leftover from DOS and classic Windows filename limits. This page and FLAC to AIFF run the identical conversion.

FLAC at a Glance

AIF (AIFF) at a Glance

Which PCM Codec the AIF Gets

The Audio Codec group on this page offers four choices, and the one you pick decides whether the file is a classic AIFF or the AIFF-C variant. The FORM type written into the first twelve bytes changes with it:

Unless a specific tool asked for something else, leave it on PCM 16-bit Big Endian — that is the plain AIFF every Apple app expects. sowt is Apple's own little-endian PCM type and is still lossless, but a few older readers only handle the big-endian form. The two G.711 options (mu-law and A-law) halve the file by dropping to 8 bits per sample and are telephony codecs, not archival ones — picking them makes the conversion lossy.

How to Convert FLAC to AIF

1. Upload Your FLAC File: Drag and drop your .flac files onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Several files can be queued and converted in one pass with the same settings.
2. Pick an Audio Codec: Leave Audio Codec on PCM 16-bit Big Endian for a standard AIFF, or choose PCM 16-bit Little Endian, mu-law or A-law if a specific device demands them.
3. Set Audio Channel, Audio Sample Rate and Trim: Leave Audio Channel and Audio Sample Rate on "ORIGINAL" for a 1:1 copy of the source; switch to MONO or a fixed rate only when a target device requires it. Trim exports a single start time and duration.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and download the .aif. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours later — no sign-up, no watermark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is .aif the same as .aiff, or do I need to convert between them?

They are the same format — Audio Interchange File Format — with two spellings of the extension. .aif is the three-character version that DOS and older Windows tools wrote; macOS usually writes .aiff. Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Ableton, QuickTime and VLC treat them identically, so going from one to the other is a rename rather than a conversion. Use this page when you genuinely have a FLAC and need an AIFF-family file out the other end.

Will converting FLAC to AIF improve the audio quality?

No, and nothing could. FLAC already holds the exact original PCM samples; the AIF writes those same samples out uncompressed. The output is bit-identical audio in a different wrapper — you gain compatibility, not fidelity. Decompressing lossless audio does not "restore" anything, because nothing was missing.

Why is my AIF so much bigger than the FLAC?

Because you removed the compression. Uncompressed 16-bit stereo at 44.1 kHz is a flat 1,411.2 kbps regardless of what the music is, which works out to about 10.6 MB per minute. FLAC typically stores the same audio at 50–70% of that. In our testing a 60-second 44.1 kHz stereo FLAC of 4,772,184 bytes converted to an AIF of 10,584,054 bytes — a 2.2× increase, all of it uncompressed sample data rather than added detail.

Does the AIF keep the bit depth of a 24-bit FLAC master?

No. The Audio Codec list for .aif output offers 16-bit PCM (big or little endian) plus the two 8-bit G.711 types, so a 24-bit FLAC is written as 16-bit. The sample rate is preserved — a 24-bit/96 kHz FLAC becomes a 16-bit/96 kHz AIF. If you need to keep 24-bit or 32-bit samples, use FLAC to WAV instead: that page exposes PCM 24-bit and 32-bit little-endian options.

Will my tags and album art survive the conversion?

Only the title. AIFF stores text metadata in chunks rather than a tag block, and the converter writes the track title into the NAME chunk — you can see it as the literal string right after FORM…AIFF in a hex view. Artist, album, track number and embedded cover art from the FLAC's Vorbis comments are not carried across. If keeping a full tag set matters, FLAC to M4A preserves title, artist and album in the MPEG-4 tag atoms.

Should I use ALAC instead of AIF on Apple devices?

Often, yes. Apple Lossless (ALAC) is bit-perfect like AIF but compressed, so it lands at roughly half to two-thirds the size while still importing natively into Apple Music and Logic Pro. AIF earns its place when you want an uncompressed working master — sample-accurate editing, sampler instruments, or a tool that will only read raw PCM. For pure listening and storage on Apple gear, a compressed lossless format is the better trade.

Can Windows and Linux play the AIF I get out of this?

Yes. AIFF is not Apple-only in practice: VLC, foobar2000, Audacity, Winamp and every major DAW read it on Windows and Linux, and Windows Media Player has handled .aiff for years. The format is simply native on macOS, where it needs no extra codec at all. Big-endian byte order is handled transparently by every modern player.

What happens to my file after conversion?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and both the upload and the result are deleted automatically a few hours later. Nothing is shared or made public, and no account is required. Uncompressed AIF output is large, so the practical constraint is your upload and download speed rather than anything on our end. Going the other way later, AIF to FLAC recompresses the identical samples back into a smaller lossless file.