HexaConverter
flacm4a

Convert FLAC to M4A

Free online converter for FLAC files. AAC audio in an MP4 container. Nothing to install, no watermark, and every file is deleted automatically.

Drag and drop your files

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Upload a FLAC file to convert it to M4A. Up to 3 files at once, 100 MB each.

Free · up to 3 files · 100 MB each · files deleted automatically after 1 hour.

About FLAC and M4A

FLAC .flac

Lossless compression for audio. Roughly half the size of WAV, and it decodes back to the original samples exactly — nothing is approximated.

Good for

  • Perfect reconstruction — identical to the source
  • Around 50–60% of the size of WAV
  • Full tagging, and an open royalty-free format

Trade-offs

  • Still far larger than MP3 or AAC
  • Not supported by every portable player or car stereo

audio/flac

M4A .m4a

An MPEG-4 container holding audio only — usually AAC, sometimes lossless ALAC. The extension tells you the wrapper, not the contents.

Good for

  • Rich tagging, including chapters and artwork
  • Holds either lossy AAC or lossless ALAC
  • The standard for iTunes and Apple Music files

Trade-offs

  • The extension alone does not tell you the quality inside
  • Support outside Apple platforms is inconsistent

audio/mp4

FLAC and M4A side by side

FLAC compared with M4A
FLACM4A
CompressionLosslessContainer — usually lossy AAC
Typically used forArchiving, high-fidelity librariesApple audio, audiobooks, podcasts

What changes when you convert FLAC to M4A

This is a re-encode, not a repackage

Some tools can move a stream into a different container untouched when the codecs happen to line up. We do not — every job here is decoded and encoded again, so the conversion takes time in proportion to the length of the file and costs a small amount of quality even where a repackage would have been possible. In exchange the output is predictable: it plays everywhere, rather than inheriting whatever the source happened to contain.

What your M4A will contain

The output is AAC — the same codec a bare .aac file holds, wrapped in an MP4 container so that artwork and tags have somewhere to live.

This step is irreversible

FLAC holds every sample; M4A keeps a close approximation. The file gets dramatically smaller, and converting back later will not undo it. Keep the FLAC original if it is a master you will work from again.

Tags may not survive intact

FLAC stores its metadata as Vorbis comments, and M4A uses MP4 atoms. Standard fields such as title, artist and album normally map across. Anything without an equivalent on the other side — unusual custom fields, some ratings and play counts, occasionally embedded artwork — has nowhere to go. Check the tags before deleting the original if your library depends on them.

FLAC to M4A questions