3 Ways to Convert FLAC to iTunes without Losing Quality

Updated Dec 27,2018 | by Cody

If you enjoy the lossless music, you may buy or download music in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec ) format. When you try to add these lossless audio files to iTunes, only to find it is not supported. In this article, I will show you a few workarounds to convert FLAC to iTunes.

As you may know that iTunes supports WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, AAC, and MP3 audio formats. In order to add FLAC music to iTunes, you need to convert them to one of the iTunes supported formats.

Apple has its own lossless format Apple Lossless Audio Encodec (ALAC). If you really want to listen to the lossless music, then you can convert FLAC to ALAC and the add them to iTunes. There is a great free app Foobar2000 to help you convert FLAC to ALAC and back on both Mac and Windows.

Let me show you how you can easily convert one or more FLAC music to ALAC on Windows.

Step 1. Free download the app

Download Foobar2000 from its official site, it is totally free and require no signup. In order to convert to ALAC, you need to also install Foobar2000 Free Encoder Pack. You can find them in its official website.

Step 2. Add the FlAC lossless files to Foobar2000.

Within the Foobar2000 software, click on File > Add files to add the free lossless files that you want to convert. You can also select all the lossless files and drag them to Foobar2000.

Step 3.Select FLAC files.

Now, select all the FLAC files in Foobar2000 and right click on it. Then select Convert> Quick Convert.

Step 4. Convert to ALAC

In a new window, select Apple Lossless. Of course, if needed you can also select another format. After that, click Convert and specify a location to save the converted music files. Wait a short moment for the process to complete.

When the process is complete, you will find the converted ALAC music all with .M4A file extension. When you check the file size, you may find out it is about the same file size as the original FLAC file. As I have heard, Apple lossless will reduce the size, but it turns out not. When I convert it to AIFF, it actually increase the size about 50%.

If you also want to listen the FLAC music on your iOS device, you can connect your iPhone to iTunes and sync the music. In that case, you need both software Foobar2000 and iTunes. But you don’t have to. There is an easier tool called IOTransfer that allows you to convert FLAC to Apple supported format and transfer them to your iOS device in the same time.

You can follow the steps below to see how it works.

Step 1. Free download and install IOTransfer. Connect your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to your PC.

Step 2. Within IOTransfer, click on Videos and select Convert from the left penal.

Step 3. Click Add Files to add the FLAC files that you want to convert. If you do not see the FLAC file, input “*”(without quotes) in the File Name box and press Enter to view all files.

Step 4. Select an output format. You can select any of the iTunes supported audio format.

Step 5. Check the option Automatically transfer the converted files into your iOS device, and then click Convert Now to start the conversion.

When the process is complete, which won’t take long, you can find all this music in the iPhone music library. You can also use this tool to download YouTube to MP3 to your iPhone. If you love to listen music on your iOS device, this tool can be very helpful.

Since iOS 11, you can actually play FLAC music on your iOS device. You can play them one by one, but you cannot add them to iOS music library. If you have downloaded FLAC music on your iPhone, you can also convert them to iTunes supported format AIFF right on your iPhone.

AIFF is also lossless format and all you need is the Shortcuts app, which is the main feature of iOS 12. You can Free download Shortcuts app from AppStore. Once that’s done, you can create a new shortcut and use the Encode Media action. Toggle on Audio Only and then you can choose the format M4A and AIFF.

You can choose either of them. After that, you can enable this shortcut for Share Sheet or add a Get File action to select files. If no intention to create one, you can also use this shortcut to convert FLAC format on iPhone.

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