M4A to WAV converter
Turn an M4A, such as a voice memo, into an uncompressed WAV for editors and devices.
Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Drop an audio file
M4A, WAV, MP3, FLAC, Ogg or any audio your browser can play. It stays on your computer.
Runs on Mediabunny (MPL-2.0). MP3 encoding uses the LAME MP3 encoder (LGPL). OGG encoding uses libvorbis (BSD).
More about this tool
- 1
Add the M4A
Drop the file or choose it. WAV is already selected.
- 2
Convert
The AAC sound is decoded to plain samples in your browser.
- 3
Download
Play the WAV to check it, then download it.
An M4A, like an iPhone voice memo, holds AAC, a compressed format. Many editors open it, but some audio tools, samplers and hardware only take WAV, and cutting or processing WAV never adds another round of compression.
The WAV sounds exactly like the M4A. Detail AAC dropped when the M4A was made doesn't come back.
The WAV is 16-bit at the M4A's sample rate and channels. Uncompressed, stereo at 44.1 kHz takes about 10 MB a minute, and a mono voice memo about half that.
An M4A can also hold Apple Lossless (ALAC), which browsers can't decode. Use afconvert or ffmpeg below for those.
macOS comes with afconvert; ffmpeg writes 16-bit WAV by default:
- afconvert -f WAVE -d LEI16 memo.m4a memo.wav
- ffmpeg -i memo.m4a memo.wav
Sources
Questions
No. The M4A is decoded and the WAV is written in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
No. The WAV sounds the same as the M4A. It just won't lose any more when you edit and save it.
It may hold Apple Lossless (ALAC) rather than AAC, which browsers can't decode, or be a copy-protected Apple Music download. Use afconvert or ffmpeg for ALAC files.
WAV stores every sample uncompressed: about 10 MB a minute for stereo at 44.1 kHz, several times the M4A.
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