How to: Make FLAC encoded music play in iTunes

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How to: Make FLAC encoded music play in iTunes

14 February 2012 7,748 views 11 Comments

I came into possession of a large collection of FLAC encoded music files and they wouldn’t play unaided in Apple’s jukebox software. That’s a problem because all of the other music, movie, etc. files my wife, children and I have are stored, managed and played in iTunes.

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a codec (compressor-decompressor) which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost. Digital audio compressed by FLAC’s algorithm can typically be reduced to 50 to 60 percent of its original size, and decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data — Wikipedia.

Now, if I wanted to mix those naughty FLAC files with my existing iTunes library and listen without converting them, there’s Fluke for Mac. However, using this free iTunes plugin presents two problems — 1.) FLAC files still can’t be played on an iPad, iPhone or iPod and 2.) Fluke is 32-bit only (See also: How to: Turn on iTunes visualizers in OS X Lion), which is a bummer for OS X Lion users like me.

The preferable alternative for me turned out to be converting those FLAC files into one of Apple’s ubiquitous formats (i.e. Lossless or AAC) and a free tool for doing that is Stephen Booth’s Max (image above). Though it’s a little long in the tooth, Max can and does convert between the MP3, FLAC, Ogg FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Monkey’s Audio, WavPack, AAC and Apple Lossless formats, includes Growl notification support and is free.

Know of a better way to make FLAC encoded files playback universally on Apple devices? Share your story and a link in the comments below…

via Apple Support Communities

11 Comments »

Mike Milton said:

http://www.channld.com/puremusic/

# 14 February 2012 at 12:26 pm

Eytan said:

I would recommend the frequently updated and (unlike max) rock solid XLD http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html (you can read about it here: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=XLD ), or the long standing and well supported xAct (http://xact.en.softonic.com/mac, updated more recently than that site) long befor Max. Max has not been updated in years and crashes frequently when trying to do multiple files. Additionally, both XLD and xAct use the Sparkle API for in app automatic updates.

# 14 February 2012 at 1:27 pm

Eytan said:

Mike, that looks awesome, but it will not support playback on apple idevices, only on desktops. As far as I can tell without jail breaking your devices ithe only options are to either convert the files to ALAC or to use a dedicated iOS FLAC player. Regardless, iOS devices will not take advantage (yet, current generation) of sample rates higher than 48 KHz nor sample sizes larger than 16 bit…

# 14 February 2012 at 1:36 pm

Jeff said:

So… this article is *NOT* about how to get FLAC files to play in iTunes. It’s about how to convert your FLAC files to a different format. Kind of a misleading title.

# 14 February 2012 at 2:31 pm

DudeGuy said:

Try these out:

http://xact.en.softonic.com/mac for xACT

or http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html for XLD

# 15 February 2012 at 12:45 am

Bobby Brown said:

So what you’re indicating is in order to enjoy a good quality audio tracks (Flac) in iTunes you need to compress them down to lesser quality? Why bother using iTunes at all? Just play your Flac files using a program such as Decibel. http://sbooth.org/Decibel/

# 15 February 2012 at 7:36 am

John Davis said:

The best way I’ve found is X Lossless Decoded (SLD):

http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html

Excellent software and continually upgraded.

# 15 February 2012 at 7:53 am

emily said:

In order to import FLAC to iTunes, import FLAC to iTunes 10.4.1/iTunes10.6, iTunes Match, and stream FLAC to iCloud, a recommended solution is to convert FLAC to Apple friendly audio formats so that you can play FLAC with iTunes, iPad, the new iPad 3, iPhone and iPod, etc

# 28 March 2012 at 2:40 am

john said:

The best and professional way to play FLAC on iTunes without quality loss is to convert FLAC to WAV (if your FLAC is 24 bit, convert Flac to WAV)or convert FLAC to Apple Lossless. Converting FLAC to 320kbps MP3 is will also give good audio quality as well as small file size.

Here is how you can batch convert FLAC to WAV, Apple Lossless ALAC or 320kbps MP3 on Mac, Snow leopard, Lion and Mountain lion:
http://www.techisky.com/how-to/convert-flac-mountain-lion.html

# 30 September 2012 at 11:57 am

Simon Harris said:

The free PlugPlayer app will allow you to play FLAC files on you iPad, I use this app on my gen1 iPad and iPhone 3GS to play FLAC files stored on my LaCie NAS.

I would also like a ‘plugin’ so that I-Tunes will play the FLAC files on my NAS

# 15 January 2013 at 1:23 pm

John Davis said:

XLD (X-Lossless=Decoder) is the best by far.

The developer keeps updating and improving it. Easy to use and fast.

And free!

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23430/x-lossless-decoder

# 6 June 2013 at 11:47 am