How do FLAC and M4Acompare? Here's everything you need to know to choose the right format — and how to convert between them.
Free Lossless Audio Codec
FLAC is the leading open-source lossless audio format. It compresses audio files to about 50-60% of their original size without any quality loss — perfect for audiophiles and music archival.
MPEG-4 Audio
M4A is an audio-only MPEG-4 container, typically containing AAC or ALAC encoded audio. It's Apple's preferred format for music files in iTunes and Apple Music.
| Specification | FLAC | M4A |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Free Lossless Audio Codec | MPEG-4 Audio |
| Extension | .flac | .m4a |
| MIME type | audio/flac | audio/mp4 |
| Category | Audio | Audio |
| Developer | Xiph.Org Foundation | Apple / ISO |
| Year introduced | 2001 | 2001 |
| Compression | Lossless | Lossy |
FLAC preserves full audio quality with no compression artifacts. M4A offers much smaller files at the cost of some quality. For casual listening, M4A is fine. For production or archival, use FLAC.
Need to switch formats? Convert for free with SquishConvert.