Convert M4A to WAV
Free online converter for M4A files. Uncompressed PCM audio for editing and mastering. Nothing to install, no watermark, and every file is deleted automatically.
Drag and drop your files
or
Upload a M4A file to convert it to WAV. Up to 3 files at once, 100 MB each.
Free · up to 3 files · 100 MB each · files deleted automatically after 1 hour.
About M4A and WAV
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
WAV .wav
Raw uncompressed audio samples in a thin container. Exactly what came off the recorder, at roughly 10 MB per minute of stereo CD-quality sound.
Good for
- Bit-for-bit perfect — nothing is discarded
- No decoding overhead, so editors handle it fastest
- The standard working format for recording and editing
Trade-offs
- Very large — around 10 MB per minute
- No built-in tags for artist or album
- Impractical for distribution or streaming
audio/wav
M4A and WAV side by side
| M4A | WAV | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Container — usually lossy AAC | Uncompressed PCM |
| Typically used for | Apple audio, audiobooks, podcasts | Recording, editing, mastering |
What changes when you convert M4A to WAV
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 WAV will contain
The output is 16-bit PCM — as uncompressed 16-bit PCM, the format CDs use. There is no quality setting because nothing is being decided: every sample is stored literally. Expect around 10 MB per minute of stereo audio, which is the price of a format that every editor and every piece of hardware will open.
Quality cannot come back
M4A already discarded detail permanently, and WAV stores exactly what it is given. The result will be considerably larger while sounding identical to the M4A you started from — lossless preserves, it does not restore. That is still the right move if you are about to edit, because further saves will not degrade it again.
Tags may not survive intact
M4A stores its metadata as MP4 atoms, and WAV uses RIFF INFO chunks, which many players ignore entirely. 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.