.aac files

Common questions

How do I open a .aac file?

On Windows use VLC; on macOS use Music (built in); on Linux use VLC. The successor to MP3 — better sound per byte, used by YouTube, Apple and broadcast.

What is a .aac file?

Advanced Audio Coding. AAC is the MPEG audio codec that replaced MP3 in most modern systems, delivering noticeably better quality at low bitrates. Most AAC audio actually lives inside .m4a or .mp4 files; a bare .aac file is a raw ADTS stream, which some players handle poorly even though they play the same codec happily in an M4A.

Can I convert a .aac file?

Yes. It is usually converted to .mp3, .m4a, .wav, .flac or .ogg, either by exporting from one of the programs listed above or with a format converter.

Related pages

• .mp3 — MPEG-1 Audio Layer III The lossy audio format that made digital music portable, and still plays on ever
• .wav — Waveform Audio File Uncompressed audio — perfect quality, very large files, universal support.
• .m4a — MPEG-4 Audio Audio in an MP4 container — what iTunes, Voice Memos and most modern recorders p
• .flac — Free Lossless Audio Codec Compressed audio that throws nothing away — about half the size of WAV, bit-for-
• .ogg — Ogg Vorbis Audio The open, patent-free audio format used by Spotify, Wikipedia and countless game
• .opus — Opus Audio The modern low-latency codec behind WhatsApp voice notes, Discord and web calls.
• .mid — MIDI Sequence Not audio at all — a list of notes and instructions for a synthesiser to perform
• .m3u — Media Playlist A plain-text list of tracks or stream URLs — it holds no audio itself.
• .wma — Windows Media Audio Microsoft's music format from the Windows XP years, now legacy.
• .aiff — Audio Interchange File Format Apple's uncompressed audio format — the Mac equivalent of WAV.
• .m4b — MPEG-4 Audiobook An audiobook file that remembers your place and supports chapters.
• .amr — Adaptive Multi-Rate Audio The narrow-band speech codec behind old phone voice recordings and MMS messages.