Convert M4A to ALAC — Free Online Converter

M4A files can contain either AAC (lossy) or ALAC (lossless) audio. If your M4A already contains ALAC, there is nothing to convert — it is already in the target format. However, if your M4A contains AAC audio (such as iTunes Store 256 kbps purchases), converting to ALAC re-encodes the lossy audio into Apple's lossless codec. The result is a larger file that stores the AAC-decoded audio losslessly, but this does not recover any quality that was lost during the original AAC encoding.

The main practical reason is format standardization. If you maintain an ALAC library and receive M4A files encoded as AAC, you might convert them to ALAC for consistency in your library management. Some DAWs and audio tools identify ALAC vs AAC M4A files differently and handle them with different import pipelines. Note that converting AAC M4A to ALAC does not improve audio quality — it simply prevents further generational loss if the file will be decoded and re-encoded in future workflows.