How to Convert FLAC to ALAC on Mac (4 Free Methods)

You ripped your CDs to FLAC, or bought lossless downloads from Bandcamp or Qobuz, and now none of it shows up in Apple Music. Drag a .flac into the Music app and nothing happens.

That is not a bug. Apple has never supported FLAC in Music, on iOS, or in iTunes before it. Their lossless format is ALAC, Apple Lossless, which arrives as an .m4a file.

The good news: both are lossless, so converting between them is bit-perfect. You lose nothing.

Quick answer: install XLD, set the output format to Apple Lossless, drag your FLAC folder in. It keeps tags and album art, and it is free.

Wait, macOS plays FLAC fine

It does, and that confuses people. Since macOS High Sierra, Core Audio decodes FLAC, so QuickTime Player opens a .flac, Finder previews it, and Quick Look shows a waveform.

The Music app is the holdout. It has its own list of what may enter the library, and FLAC is not on it. So the file plays on your Mac but cannot live in your library, cannot sync to your iPhone, and cannot be matched to anything.

Pick the method that matches the job

Method 1: XLD (free, and built for this)

XLD is a Mac audio tool that has been around forever and does this exact job better than anything else free. It reads FLAC, writes ALAC, and translates the tags properly.

Steps:

1. Download XLD from tmkk.undo.jp/xld
2. Open XLD → Settings → General
3. Set Output format to Apple Lossless
4. Set the output directory, and turn on Preserve the directory structure if you are doing a whole library
5. Close settings, then drag your FLAC files or folders onto the XLD window

It queues everything and works through it. Tags, track numbers, disc numbers, and embedded cover art all come across.

The catch:

The interface is from another era, and the settings are scattered across several tabs. It is also unsigned in the usual way, so the first launch needs a right-click → Open. Once it is set up you never touch the settings again.

Best for:

Anyone converting a real library for free, who does not mind a dated UI.

Method 2: the Music app (free, built in, with a detour)

There is no direct route here, because Music will not accept the FLAC in the first place. But Music does convert anything already in your library to ALAC, so the trick is getting the audio in as something it accepts.

Steps:

1. Convert your FLAC files to AIFF first. QuickTime cannot do it, so use XLD, ffmpeg, or drag them through any converter. AIFF because it carries tags, unlike WAV.
2. Open Music → Settings → Files → Import Settings…
3. Set Import Using to Apple Lossless Encoder, click OK
4. Drag the AIFF files into your library
5. Select them, then File → Convert → Create Apple Lossless Version
6. Delete the AIFF originals from the library once the ALAC copies appear

The catch:

It is two conversions and a temporary pile of AIFF files, which are uncompressed and roughly twice the size of the FLAC. You also need a first tool anyway to make the AIFF, and any tool that makes AIFF can usually make ALAC directly, which makes this the long way round.

Best for:

Nobody, honestly, unless you already have AIFF or WAV files sitting there. Included because it is the first thing everyone tries.

Method 3: afconvert (free, built in, Terminal)

macOS ships a converter at /usr/bin/afconvert. Nothing to install.

afconvert -f m4af -d alac song.flac song.m4a

-f m4af is the .m4a container, -d alac is Apple Lossless. That is the whole command.

The catch:

Two real problems, both of which I hit while testing this on macOS 27.

It throws your tags away. Title, artist, album, track number, album art, all gone. The output is a nameless lossless file. For a music library that is a dealbreaker.

It writes 32-bit ALAC. Feed it a normal 16-bit CD rip and the output comes back 32-bit, which on my test file was six times the size of the FLAC that went in. Same audio, padded out. There is no flag to hold the bit depth.

Best for:

A one-off file where the tags do not matter, and you do not want to install anything.

Method 4: ffmpeg (free, and precise)

If you already have ffmpeg, or you want to script the whole library, this is the reliable route.

brew install ffmpeg

One file:

ffmpeg -i song.flac -c:a alac -c:v copy -disposition:v attached_pic song.m4a

The -c:v copy -disposition:v attached_pic part is not optional in practice. FLAC stores cover art as a video stream, and without those flags ffmpeg tries to re-encode the artwork as H.264, fails, and writes nothing:

Could not find tag for codec h264 in stream #0

That error message is why so many people conclude ffmpeg cannot do ALAC. It can. It just needs to be told to leave the album cover alone.

A folder:

for f in *.flac; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a alac -c:v copy -disposition:v attached_pic "${f%.flac}.m4a"; done

A whole library, keeping the folder tree:

find . -name '*.flac' -exec sh -c \
  'ffmpeg -i "$1" -c:a alac -c:v copy -disposition:v attached_pic "${1%.flac}.m4a"' _ {} \;

Tags come across on their own. ffmpeg maps FLAC’s Vorbis comments onto the .m4a’s iTunes atoms without being asked.

The catch:

It is the Terminal, and one wrong flag either drops your artwork or fails outright. Also, if a file has no cover art at all, -c:v copy is harmless, so the command above is safe to run across a mixed library.

Method 5: Picmal (drag the library in, click once)

Picmal is the Mac app I build. Drag in a folder, pick ALAC, click Convert.

Steps:

1. Download Picmal from picmal.app
2. Drag in your FLAC files, or the whole music folder
3. Set the output format to ALAC
4. Click Convert

Why people reach for it:

• Bit-perfect ALAC, verified against the source, not a lossy file wearing a lossless name
• Tags, track numbers, and embedded art carried across without flags
• Hundreds of tracks in one pass, folder structure kept, output to a subfolder if you want
• Runs entirely on your Mac. No upload, no account, no file size cap
• Sits in the Finder right-click menu, so a folder of FLAC is two clicks from ALAC
• Handles the rest of the library too, WAV, AIFF, APE, WMA, OGG, all into ALAC

$39 once, updates included, no subscription.

Best for:

A big library, when you would rather not learn ffmpeg or fight XLD’s settings panes.

Side-by-side comparison

FLAC or ALAC, if you get to choose

Both are lossless. Neither sounds better than the other, because both decode to exactly the source samples. The choice is about where the files have to play.

ALAC if your listening happens in Apple Music, on an iPhone, on an Apple TV, or through HomePods. It is the only lossless format that whole chain accepts.

FLAC if you use Plex, Roon, a Sonos system, an Android phone, a DAP, or a Linux server. FLAC is the default everywhere outside Apple’s fence, and it compresses a few percent smaller.

Both is a fine answer too. Keep FLAC as the archive on a drive somewhere, run an ALAC copy into Apple Music. They are the same audio, so nothing is lost by holding two versions.

Common problems

The .m4a imports but Music says it is not lossless. Check what the file actually contains. Some converters quietly write AAC into the .m4a instead of ALAC, because both formats use the same extension. In Music, select the track and press Command-I, then look at the Codec line under the File tab. It should read Apple Lossless, not AAC. If it reads AAC, the conversion was lossy and you need to redo it from the FLAC.

The album art is missing. ffmpeg without -c:v copy -disposition:v attached_pic, or afconvert at all. Reconvert with the right flags, or use XLD or Picmal, which handle it by default.

Track numbers are wrong or the album is split. FLAC’s Vorbis comments store disc and track differently from the way iTunes atoms do, and a sloppy converter loses the disc number. That makes Music treat disc 2 as a second album. XLD and Picmal map them correctly. If you already have a mess, select the tracks in Music, Command-I, and set the disc numbers by hand.

ffmpeg fails with “Could not find tag for codec h264”. The embedded cover art again. See Method 4.

The ALAC files are much bigger than the FLAC. A few percent bigger is normal. Six times bigger means afconvert padded 16-bit audio out to 32-bit. Reconvert with ffmpeg, XLD, or Picmal.

The short version

• Free, whole library, tags kept: XLD, output format set to Apple Lossless
• Free, scripted: ffmpeg -i in.flac -c:a alac -c:v copy -disposition:v attached_pic out.m4a
• Built in, one file, tags not needed: afconvert -f m4af -d alac in.flac out.m4a
• Skip the Music app route unless your files are already AIFF or WAV
• Hundreds of albums, no Terminal: Picmal, or the FLAC to ALAC page

Once the ALAC files are in place, the rest of your audio housekeeping is the same job: converting audio on a Mac covers the other formats, and compressing audio covers the trip back down to something small enough for a phone.