does itunes support .flac?

iTunes can currently read, write and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless (.m4a). iTunes can also play any audio files that QuickTime can play (as well as some video formats), including Protected AAC files from the iTunes Store and Audible.com audio books. FLAC is a lossless format, meaning that FLAC files retain all the audio information of a song, unlike AAC or MP3, which remove some to compress songs to a smaller filesize. However, FLAC format is not a supported format by Apple’s software and devices, like iTunes. This guide from UFUShare.com tells how to convert FLAC AIFF, MP3, WAV, M4A, WMA, etc to to import, add FLAC to iTunes for easy play, open, read FLAC in iTunes.

How to Play FLAC Files in iTunes?

iTunesdoes not support FLAC, but you can use a converter to convert FLAC to AppleLossless or AIFF or MP3 to play it on your iTunes. Here is a nice article abouthow to import and add FLAC to iTunes. http://www.bigasoft.com/articles/how-to-import-flac-to-itunes.html

iTunes will convert FLACs to other formats, and can play them natively.

But only after a little bit of tweaking to fool iTunes into doing so. (Not supporting FLAC files is kind of a boner move by Apple, presumably to push their own Lossless format, but FLAC is open-source and royalty-free, so you do the math...)

Download Fluke and use it to install needed Quicktime components, then change the file extension from ".flac"

to ".mov" and you're done.

Oh, and Fluke is free and way easy to use.

More info here: http://www.macworld.com/article/142096/2009/08/play_wmaoggflac_itunes.html

iTunes doesn't support flac, but you can use XDL to convert them. This article: http://appducate.com/2013/01/how-to-convert-audio-music-formats-to-itunes/ explains how to convert them, and what formats are best for converting in different circumstances. For instance it explains why AAC is the best for portable devices and why Apple Lossless is the best for quality.

$4 for your iOS conversion tool or $0 for XLD on Mac or any number of flac -> alac convertors on Windows, just google it.

Also, sound quality wise there is no difference between a CD ripped to WAV, FLAC, ALAC or whatever "lossless" format there is. iTunes will never support FLAC natively, because it doesn't need to.

According to wikipedia, iTunes can currently read, write and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless (.m4a). That is we still cannot import and play FLAC in iTunes.

In order to play FLAC in iTunes, we had better convert FLAC to iTunes more supported audio format with a third party software like idealshare videogo which can convert FLAC to iTunes supported Apple Lossless, MP3, WAV, AAC, AIFF on Mac or Windows

It is kind of silly that Apple will not support FLAC.

It is very easy to convert FLAC to ALAC using ffmpeg:

M:\flac>ffmpeg -i "Miles_Ahead.flac" -acodec alac "Miles_Ahead.m4a"

ffmpeg is free - http://ffmpeg.org/download.html

ALAC is open-source and DRM free these days:

http://alac.macosforge.org/trac/browser/trunk/codec

No need to keep redundant FLAC & ALAC unless you actively play both file types on different platforms that are mutually exclusive to either format, because you can easily convert back & forth using free XLD

http://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

Dependancies exists everywhere and with every choice you make every day. iCloud/iTunes Match is an option ( a great one for legalizing all those old subpar mp3 128k or < files you found on the internet over the years) no one forces you to make.

iTunes Plus (AAC 256k) may be lossy, but I'd challenge you to hear any difference between that and ALAC/FLAC on your mobile iDevice.

If you've invested in the Apple ecosystem, use ALAC for archiving and iTunes Plus for playing and *enjoy* the Music!

Hi,

I wrote a tool that I sell on the App Store that allows you to import FLAC files into iTunes by converting them to ALAC. It's called FLACTunes. It supports all your metadata (song info, album art, etc.), and is extremely simple to use.

-Matthew

For anyone who has FLAC media files and wants to convert to play on iTunes. Here is a link on "how to" from OSX Daily. Works like a charm for the few songs I want to convert.

http://osxdaily.com/2010/07/16/flac-to-mp3-for-mac/

I use FLACTunes. Works great, well worth the tiny cost.

I use FLAC to iTunes Converter. Works great!

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Jeff Blanding wrote:

Can iTunes play .flac files? Can it do so natively ...

no.

... or be modified to do so?

yes.

see this article.

Can it import .flac files, converting them to .mp3 or .mp4 or .aac or something?

what you can do is convert the FLACs to Apple Lossless files. either of these free apps can do that for you.

Buchi Royia Havey wrote:

According to wikipedia, iTunes can currently read, write and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless (.m4a).

Acrding to Apple & iTunes, it is the same.

In order to play FLAC in iTunes,

You can't play FLAC in iTunes.

we had better convert FLAC to iTunes

by following the 1st response in this thread from 3 years ago.

iTunes/Apple has it's own version of lossless audio called ALAC. If you have a collection of FLAC files and are trying to play them on your phone, you should use younity. It's a free app that works as a personal cloud/media server that connects your computer to your phone or tablet. It lets you access all of your files on-the-go and can stream/download practically any file type, including FLAC on an iPhone or iPad.