Convert AIFF AIFC to AAC M4A on Mac

.AIF or .AIFF are file extensions for Audio Interchange File Format files. They are developed by Apple and based on the Interchange file format (.IFF). AIFF and AIF files are uncompressed. One common variant of the AIFF format is AIFF-C or AIFC which is a compressed version of an AIFF file format.

You can play the AIFF and AIFC files using popular media players like iTunes, QuickTime Player, Windows Media Player, VLC, etc. If you run into incompatibility issue with a mobile device, you can use iTunes, QuickTime or third party software to convert them first. You can refer to this tutorial to convert AIFF AIFC to AAC, M4A, MP3, WAV using iTunes. In fact, Mac OS has a service which can directly convert AIFF, AIFC, CAFF, WAVE, Sd2f files to AAC format. No need any converter for the conversion.

Note AAC is the audio encoder. AAC encoded files can have a variety of extensions, such as .aac and .m4a.

Convert AIFF AIFC to M4A on Mac

Find the AIFF or AIFC file in Finder. Right click (Command-click) on the selected .aiff, .aifc files and choose Encode Selected Audio Files from the context menu that pops up.

encode selected audio files in finder on mac

After that you will get the ‘Encode to MPEG Audio‘ window. The Encoder is set to High-Quality by default. You can simply hit the Continue button to convert the selected AIFF or AIFC file to M4A files.

encode to mpeg audio on mac

More audio converting settings

If need, you can also change a different encoder, iTunes Plus, Apple Lossless or Spoken Podcast. The converted file will be saved to the same directory as the source files by default. You can however change it to a different destination if like. If you like to delete the old files automatically, enable the ‘Delete source files after processing’ option.

Can’t find Encode Selected Audio Files?

Head to System Preferences >> Keyboard >> Shortcuts >> Services and select to enable “Encode Selected Audio Files”.