.aiff files
.aiff file
Audio Interchange File Format
Apple's uncompressed audio format — the Mac equivalent of WAV.
What opens a .aiff file
- Windows
- Media Player (built in), VLC, Audacity
- macOS
- Music (built in), QuickTime Player (built in), GarageBand, Audacity
- Linux
- VLC, Audacity, Rhythmbox / Music (built in)
What a .aiff file is
AIFF was designed by Apple in 1988 and stores raw PCM audio at full quality, which makes it standard in Mac recording and music production. It handles metadata slightly better than WAV and is the same size, roughly 10 MB per stereo minute. Windows Media Player, VLC and every audio editor read it, so the format is portable despite its Apple origins.
Converting it
A .aiff file is commonly converted to .wav, .mp3, .flac or .m4a. It is a binary format, so a text editor will show unreadable characters rather than its contents.
Details
- Extension
- .aiff
- Full name
- Audio Interchange File Format
- Category
- Audio
- MIME type
- audio/x-aiff
- Created by
- Apple
- Format
- Binary
Common questions
- How do I open a .aiff file?
- On Windows use Media Player (built in); on macOS use Music (built in); on Linux use VLC. Apple's uncompressed audio format — the Mac equivalent of WAV.
- What is a .aiff file?
- Audio Interchange File Format. AIFF was designed by Apple in 1988 and stores raw PCM audio at full quality, which makes it standard in Mac recording and music production. It handles metadata slightly better than WAV and is the same size, roughly 10 MB per stereo minute.
- Can I convert a .aiff file?
- Yes. It is usually converted to .wav, .mp3, .flac or .m4a, 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-
- .aac — Advanced Audio Coding The successor to MP3 — better sound per byte, used by YouTube, Apple and broadca
- .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.
- .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.
Sources
- Media Types Registry — IANA
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place