---
title: Convert audio on a Mac: MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC
source: https://arazioformac.com/docs/convert-audio
---

# Convert audio

Pick the file up, hold <kbd>⇧</kbd>, let go toward the format.

## Formats

MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, FLAC, AIFF, OGG and Opus. Each has
[its own page](/docs/formats/mp3).

Which to pick:

- **MP3** when something has to play it and you do not know what that
  something is. Nothing refuses an MP3.
- **M4A** for better quality at the same size, on Apple software.
- **WAV or AIFF** when handing audio to an editor. Uncompressed, enormous,
  perfect.
- **FLAC** to keep something losslessly at about half the size of a WAV.
- **Opus** for voice at small sizes, if you know the other end supports it.

## Lossy into lossy

MP3, M4A, AAC, OGG and Opus are all lossy. Converting between them decodes and
re-encodes, and loses a little each time.

Converting an MP3 to FLAC does **not** restore anything. You get a lossless
copy of a lossy file: all of the artefacts, several times the size. If the
original is an MP3, it stays an MP3's worth of quality forever.

## Audio from a video

Drag the video, hold <kbd>⌥</kbd>, release toward **Extract Audio**. That is
the right way round — converting a video to an audio format on the
<kbd>⇧</kbd> ring does the same job, but Extract Audio is clearer about what
it will do to the picture, which is discard it.

## Levelling things out

**Normalize** on the <kbd>⌥</kbd> ring evens out loudness, so one track is not
twice as loud as the next. Useful on a folder of recordings made at different
times.

## Trimming

**Trim** cuts the file down to a stretch you pick, and avoids re-encoding what
it keeps where the format allows it.