This page contains information on the M4A file extension (MPEG-4 Audio Layer), a popular audio file format
| File extension | .m4a |
| Category | Audio File |
| Description | M4A audio files were developed to enable easy sharing of digital music, audiobook content, podcasts. It was generally intended as the successor to MP3 and the file quality is better and file sizes smaller compared to MP3 files. M4A files sound better than MP3 files when encoded at the same bit rate due to some of the enhancements. It's the default audio format for Apple products, Nintendo products, Android, Blackberry, PlayStation, and many in-dash music systems in cars. |
| Actions | Convert M4A file View other audio file formats |
| Technical Details | M4A is a file encoded with advanced audio coding (AAC) and is implemented with AAC compression standards or ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) specifications. This effectively means that they can be decoded back to their original quality they were at the point of compression. It was developed by Apple and it only contains audio data, rather than MP4 which contains both audio and video. An added benefit of M4A files are that they do not carry any Digital Rights Management protection. |
| Associated programs | Android Phones Android Tablet Apple QuickTime Player Apple iTunes VLC iPad iPhone |
| Developed by | Apple |
| MIME type | audio/m4a |
| Useful links | What is an M4A file? Apple Lossless Convert M4A file |
Convert M4A file
Using Zamzar it is possible to convert M4A files to a variety of other formats
- m4a to aac (Advanced Audio Coding File)
- m4a to ac3 (AC3 Audio File)
- m4a to flac (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
- m4a to m4r (iPhone Ringtone File)
- m4a to mp3 (Compressed audio file)
- m4a to mp4 (MPEG-4 Video File)
- m4a to ogg (Ogg Vorbis Compressed Audio File)
- m4a to wav (Windows audio file)
- m4a to wma (Windows Media Audio)
