Convert AIF to FLAC — Free Online Converter

AIF is Apple's uncompressed PCM audio format from 1988, storing audio in big-endian byte order within an IFF-based container. Originally designed for professional audio on classic Mac OS, AIF preserves every sample at full fidelity — identical to WAV but with big-endian byte ordering. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), developed by Josh Coalson and released in 2001, achieves 50-60% lossless compression using linear prediction and Rice coding.

Converting AIF to FLAC compresses uncompressed PCM into a lossless format that is typically half the file size while preserving every single audio sample. Unlike AAC or MP3 conversion, no audio information is discarded — FLAC can be decoded back to produce PCM data identical to the original AIF content.

AIF files occupy roughly 10 MB per minute at CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz). FLAC compresses this to approximately 5-6 MB per minute without losing a single sample. For large collections, this 40-50% savings translates to hundreds of gigabytes recovered. Unlike lossy formats, you sacrifice nothing — the audio remains bit-perfect.

FLAC also enjoys much broader platform support than AIF. It plays natively on Android, Linux, most web browsers, VLC, Foobar2000, and many streaming platforms including Tidal and Amazon Music HD. AIF is largely limited to Apple software. Converting AIF to FLAC makes your lossless audio accessible across virtually all modern platforms and operating systems.

FFmpeg decodes the AIF container's big-endian PCM stream to internal samples, then compresses using the FLAC encoder. FLAC encoding applies linear prediction (up to 32nd order) to model the audio signal, then encodes the prediction residual using Rice coding. Compression levels 0-8 control the prediction order and search depth — higher levels produce slightly smaller files but encode slower. The output preserves original bit depth (16, 24, or 32-bit) and sample rate (up to 655,350 Hz) with embedded Vorbis comment metadata.