Drop in a M4A file and get a WAV back in seconds. Free, no account, and nothing is kept on our server.
Convert audio files between MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG, Opus, and more. Extract audio from video. Powered by FFmpeg — free, no installation.
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Supported formats: MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG, OPUS, WMA, M4A, AIFF, AC3, AIFF, AMR
Also: MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV (extracts the audio track) · Max 512 MB
Getting an Apple recording into editing software that wants raw PCM.
M4A is not a codec at all but a container, MPEG-4 Part 14, that almost always holds AAC audio (or ALAC if the file came from Apple Lossless). iTunes made it the everyday extension for downloaded music and voice memos, which is why so many people meet it without ever choosing it.
WAV stores raw PCM samples with no compression whatsoever. Nothing is thrown away when the file is written and nothing is reconstructed when it is played, so editors, mastering chains and speech-recognition tools expect it. The price is size: CD-quality stereo runs at 1411 kbit/s, roughly 10 MB for every minute of audio.
| M4A | WAV | |
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2003 | 1991 |
| Developed by | MPEG / Apple | Microsoft and IBM |
| Compression | lossy | uncompressed |
| Typical bitrate | 128-256 kbit/s | 1411 kbit/s (CD) |
| Three-minute track | 3-6 MB | about 30 MB |
| Quality ceiling | Same as its codec | Exactly the source |
| Best suited to | iTunes and Apple ecosystem | Editing, mastering, speech tools |
| Playback support | Wide, weaker on old car stereos | Universal on desktop |
No further quality is lost, but none is gained either. M4A already discarded detail when it was created; the WAV file preserves what survived, at roughly five times the size. Anyone promising that this restores lost quality is selling something.
A normal song finishes in a few seconds. Conversion runs on our server rather than in your browser, so the slow part is usually the upload, not the work itself. Long recordings such as lectures or podcasts take proportionally longer.
Your file is uploaded to our server because the conversion runs there. A cleanup task runs every hour and deletes anything older than an hour, so nothing you upload survives more than about two hours. We do not open your files, we do not keep copies, and no account is needed to use the converter.