Convert WAV to FLAC in your browser
Lossless compression, so the samples that come back out are the samples that went in. There is no bitrate control because FLAC has no honest use for one.
Sample audio: Prelude in C major, BWV 846 (J.S. Bach), performed by Kimiko Ishizaka. Dedicated to the public domain (CC0). See sample-audio-LICENCE.txt for details.
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No WAV to hand?
FLAC is the right archive format and a large one to carry around. If the destination is a handset or a car rather than a library, a lossy copy is the file that fits.
Convert WAV to MP3 insteadHow to convert WAV to FLAC
Session recordings, field audio, stems, a ripped CD. Nothing is uploaded, which is the point when the files are hundreds of megabytes to begin with.
The defaults keep every channel and every tag. Mono is the one control that discards audio, so turn it on only for a single-source spoken recording.
A file roughly half the size with identical audio inside, which VLC, foobar2000, Plex, Roon, Android and every music library of the last fifteen years will play.
How can it be half the size and still lossless?
Because a WAV stores every sample at full width whether or not the audio needs it. PCM is a fixed-cost format: rate times channels times bit depth times duration, and a passage of silence costs exactly as much as a passage of orchestra. FLAC looks for the structure that is actually there, predicts each sample from the ones before it, and stores only the difference. The decoder runs the same prediction in reverse and reproduces the original numbers exactly, the way unzipping a document gives back the document.
How much you save is a property of the music rather than a setting. Sparse, quiet or heavily correlated recordings compress hardest, sometimes past 60%; dense, loud, noisy masters compress least, occasionally under 30%. There is no dial for it here because there could not honestly be one: any control claiming to make a lossless file smaller by a number you choose would be discarding audio and calling it something else.
This is the right direction to store audio in, and the reason to keep doing the work in WAV. Edit in PCM, because that is what editors want and repeated saving costs nothing, then convert the finished files to FLAC for the archive. If you later need the WAV back, the FLAC to WAV page reverses it, and for a 16-bit file the result is the same audio you started with.
WAV to FLAC FAQ
Does converting WAV to FLAC lose any quality?
No. FLAC reproduces the exact samples it was given, so the audio in the FLAC is the audio in the WAV. The only control on this page that changes the recording is the mono switch, which is off by default and says so.
How much smaller will the file be?
Usually 40 to 60%. It depends entirely on the music: quiet, sparse or highly correlated recordings compress hardest, and a dense loud master compresses least. There is no setting for it, because the saving comes from the audio rather than a choice.
What happens to a 24-bit WAV?
The encoder writes 16 or 24-bit FLAC to match the samples it is handed, so a CD-depth file stays CD depth and a 24-bit session should come back at 24. If you are archiving masters and about to delete the WAV, check the output in your editor first rather than taking our word for it.
Can I get the WAV back?
Yes. That is what lossless means, and the FLAC to WAV page on this site does it. For a 16-bit source the round trip returns the same audio; note that the reverse page writes 16-bit PCM, so a 24-bit FLAC comes back at 16.
Why is there no bitrate or target size control?
Because FLAC cannot honour one. Its size follows the content, so a target-size dial would have to discard audio to hit a number, which is what a lossy format is for. The MP3 and OGG conversion pages are where a bitrate is a real choice.
Are my WAV files uploaded to convert them?
No. The WAV is decoded and the FLAC is written by your own browser, in this tab. There is no upload endpoint in the site for a file to go to, which you can check in your network tools: convert something and watch that no request carries it. Disconnect from the network after the page loads and it still works.
Related
Same format joins the queue. Anything else re-routes to its own tool.