FG
💻 Software

How to decode AAC (.m4a) audio files into WAV?

Fresh5 days ago
Mar 15, 2026110751 views
Confidence Score1%
1%

Problem

How would you convert (decode) AAC files into WAV format? (Or, if you prefer, how to decode & re-encode them into MP3 or Ogg Vorbis? But WAV is sufficient as I already have good tools for WAV ➔ MP3/Ogg conversion.) I'm mostly interested in Mac or Linux solutions, but feel free to mention Windows ones too. (Use case: I have some voice memos ("Apple lossless audio file"), recorded with iPhone, that I'd like to share in a format that's more common than AAC.)

Unverified for your environment

Select your OS to check compatibility.

1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Fix for: How to decode AAC (.m4a) audio files into WAV?

Low Risk

On Ubuntu, I use avconv on the command line: You can also use FFmpeg with the same syntax, simply replacing with . This can do every M4A in a directory, combined with a for loop: Linux: Windows (directly in the command prompt): Windows (in a batch file): If you want a GUI, you may consider WinFF, which is a GUI for FFmpeg.

Awaiting Verification

Be the first to verify this fix

Sign in to verify this fix

Environment