How do I convert M4A to WAV?

Leave From on M4A and To on WAV, press Open audio or drop the M4A on the stage, pick the sample rate and channels, press Convert and then Download. The WAV keeps the M4A's name with the new extension.

Does M4A to WAV improve quality?

No. An M4A usually holds AAC, which is lossy, and the WAV holds exactly what that AAC decodes to. What you gain is a file that is not compressed again, which is what an editor wants.

Does it handle Apple Lossless M4A files?

Usually not, because browsers generally have no Apple Lossless (ALAC) decoder. The page names the codec inside the M4A and asks your browser before converting, so a file it cannot decode is refused up front with the reason, rather than halfway through. The way around it is to export it as WAV from the app that made it.

No. It is parsed and decoded in this tab, and the WAV is written here.

M4A to WAV Converter

Open an M4A, such as a Voice Memos recording or an exported song, and this page names the codec inside it, decodes it with your browser and writes an uncompressed 16-bit WAV at 44.1 or 48 kHz. The WAV is what editors and burning programs want, and it is larger, not better: the size is exact arithmetic and is printed before you convert.

Open an M4A or AAC file

· or drop one anywhere on the stage

Never uploadedNo accountUp to 50 MBUp to 10 minutes

From · opens M4A or AAC

Bit depth

Sample rate

Channels

Download

Ready. Choose an M4A or AAC file, or drop one on the stage.

The codec inside the M4A is inspected and named before any conversion begins. A bare .aac file opens here too: it is the same AAC audio without the MP4 box. The output is uncompressed 16-bit PCM at the sample rate you choose, which does not restore anything a lossy file already lost: it is a larger file, not a better one.

What the bytes sayread from the first bytes of the file, never from its extension
Open a file and its container is identified before anything is decoded.
Output sizeexact arithmetic for PCM, an estimate for MP3
Open a file to size the output.
Decoderasked of this browser before a conversion starts
A codec with no decoder here is named up front, not halfway through.

The From control is a mode, not a guess: the first bytes of the file are read and checked against it, so a file that was renamed is refused with what it actually is. A FLAC opens in WAV mode, and a MOV or WebM video in MP4 mode. An MP4 has its audio tracks listed before anything is extracted and its video is never decoded. Changing the sample rate resamples by linear interpolation, and changing the channel count averages a stereo pair down or copies a mono channel to both sides.

Two open source parts do the heavy lifting. Containers are parsed and audio is decoded by Mediabunny 1.55.7 under the MPL-2.0 (licence text, the exact package, source). MP3 encoding is lamejs 1.2.7 under the LGPL-3.0 (licence text, the exact package, corresponding source). Both are bundled unmodified at those versions and loaded from this page, never from another service.

Common questions

How do I convert M4A to WAV?: Leave From on M4A and To on WAV, press Open audio or drop the M4A on the stage, pick the sample rate and channels, press Convert and then Download. The WAV keeps the M4A's name with the new extension.
Does M4A to WAV improve quality?: No. An M4A usually holds AAC, which is lossy, and the WAV holds exactly what that AAC decodes to. What you gain is a file that is not compressed again, which is what an editor wants.
Does it handle Apple Lossless M4A files?: Usually not, because browsers generally have no Apple Lossless (ALAC) decoder. The page names the codec inside the M4A and asks your browser before converting, so a file it cannot decode is refused up front with the reason, rather than halfway through. The way around it is to export it as WAV from the app that made it.
Is the M4A uploaded?: No. It is parsed and decoded in this tab, and the WAV is written here.

Files are decoded and re-encoded in your browser, so nothing is uploaded. Converting cannot restore detail a lossy file already lost, and an MP3 output is a lossy encode of its own. Which formats can be decoded depends on your browser, and this page checks the file's actual bytes and its codec before starting rather than trusting the extension.