Convert WAV to FLAC Online
Convert WAV to FLAC without loss. Audiophile archival with up to 60% less space.
.wav · up to 100 MB
What you can do
WAV to FLAC: lossless, no compromises
100% private
Conversion happens in your browser. Your audio never gets uploaded to any server.
Zero quality loss
FLAC is mathematically identical to the original WAV. Verifiable with MD5 checksum.
Universal support
Compatible with foobar2000, VLC, Plex, Kodi, Android, iOS, and dedicated players.
Up to 60% less space
Same quality as WAV with up to half the file size.
How it works
Three steps, no hassle
Upload your WAV file
Drag or select your .wav file. No signup, no usage limits.
Lossless conversion
Your WAV converts to FLAC using lossless compression. Every bit of audio is preserved perfectly.
Download your FLAC
FLAC file with the same audio data as the original, with up to 60% smaller size.
FAQ
Got questions?
Yes, FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is genuinely lossless. Unlike MP3 or AAC which discard audio information that the psychoacoustic model considers imperceptible, FLAC compresses audio the same way ZIP compresses a text document: the resulting file is smaller, but decoding produces exactly the same bits as the original file. This is verified by an MD5 checksum of the PCM audio that FLAC stores in its metadata. If you decode a FLAC and calculate the MD5 of the resulting PCM, you will get exactly the same hash as the MD5 of the original WAV. This property is mathematically verifiable, not just 'inaudibly similar'. This is why FLAC is the standard for music archiving in high-resolution collections (24-bit/96kHz, 24-bit/192kHz) where complete fidelity is critical.
The typical size reduction is 40-60% compared to the original WAV. A 100 MB WAV file converts to approximately a 40-60 MB FLAC, maintaining the same audio data. The variation depends on content type: music recorded with many instruments and spectral complexity compresses less (40-50% reduction) than simpler recordings like voice or solo instruments (50-65% reduction). The FLAC compression level (0-8) also affects size but not quality: level 0 is faster but produces larger files, level 8 is slower but produces the smallest files. The default and recommended level is 5, which offers the best balance between encoding speed and compression ratio.
FLAC has native and robust support for advanced metadata. It uses the same Vorbis Comment system as OGG for text tags (TITLE, ARTIST, ALBUM, TRACKNUMBER, DATE, GENRE). For album artwork, FLAC supports PICTURE blocks that can contain PNG or JPEG images embedded directly in the file. ReplayGain, the volume normalization standard proposed by David Robinson in 2001, is stored as text tags: REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN, REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN, and their corresponding peaks. Cue sheets (.cue files describing track indices in a single full-album FLAC file) are also stored in a dedicated CUESHEET block within the FLAC file. This is one of the reasons FLAC is the preferred format for CD audio ripping with programs like EAC (Exact Audio Copy) or fre:ac.
FLAC and ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) are both high-quality lossless codecs, but with different history and support. ALAC was developed by Apple in 2004 as a proprietary format, and became open-source in 2011 (Apache 2.0 license). FLAC was created by Josh Coalson for Xiph.org and released in 2001, always under open-source licenses (BSD for the library, GPL for command-line tools). FLAC has more universal support: it works on virtually any platform and open-source player. ALAC works natively in the Apple ecosystem (iTunes, Apple Music, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, AirPlay) but requires additional software on Windows and Linux. For archiving in mixed ecosystems, FLAC is the most portable option. For collections primarily on Apple devices, ALAC offers seamless integration without conversion.
FLAC has extremely broad support: VLC (all platforms), foobar2000 (Windows, with native FLAC support from its earliest versions), Winamp, Windows Media Player (Windows 10+ with additional codec), macOS Music app (formerly iTunes, with FLAC support added in 2017), Android (native support since Android 3.1 Honeycomb), Plex, Emby, Kodi, and virtually all Synology and QNAP NAS systems. Dedicated audio players (DAPs) from brands like FiiO, Astell&Kern, Sony Walkman high-end, and iBasso support FLAC up to 32-bit/768kHz. The iPhone added FLAC support in iOS 11 (2017) for local playback, though Apple Music still prefers ALAC for its library.
FLAC was created by Josh Coalson, who started the project in 2000 and released version 1.0 on July 20, 2001. Coalson worked on FLAC as a personal open-source project and donated it to Xiph.Org Foundation in 2003. Version 1.1.0 (2003) introduced support for high-resolution audio up to 32-bit and 655,350 Hz sampling rate. Version 1.2.0 (2007) added official ReplayGain support. Version 1.3.0 (2013) improved metadata support. The current version is 1.4.3 (released in 2023), which introduced compression improvements and support for experimental level 9. The linear prediction algorithm FLAC uses (LPC, Linear Predictive Coding) was originally developed for speech compression, but FLAC adapts it with variable prediction order (1-12 in standard profiles) and Golomb-Rice residue coding to maximize efficiency on musical audio.
WAV to FLAC: lossless compression, audiophile archiving, and digital preservation
WAV (Waveform Audio File Format) is the uncompressed audio format developed by Microsoft and IBM in 1991 as part of the RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format) standard. A standard CD-quality WAV file contains linear PCM (Pulse-Code Modulation) audio at 16 bits and 44,100 Hz sampling rate, producing 1,411 kbps constant bitrate and approximately 10 MB per minute of audio. The format has not changed fundamentally since 1991: it remains uncompressed PCM audio, making it the ideal archiving starting point because it involves no signal processing. The problem with WAV is its size: a standard 45-minute music album occupies approximately 450 MB in WAV, while in FLAC it occupies between 170 and 270 MB with identical bit-for-bit quality. For high-resolution collections (24-bit/96kHz or 24-bit/192kHz), WAV files are even larger: an album at 24-bit/192kHz occupies approximately 3.5 GB in WAV and 1.5-2 GB in FLAC. The WAV standard also has a historical limitation: the size fields in the RIFF header use unsigned 32-bit integers, limiting files to a theoretical maximum of 4 GB. For larger files, there is the RF64 format (EBU Tech 3306, 2006) that extends WAV with 64-bit fields.
FLAC's compression algorithm is based on three stages: prediction, residue calculation, and entropy coding. In the prediction stage, FLAC models each audio sample as a linear combination of previous samples (LPC, Linear Predictive Coding) using prediction coefficients calculated with the Levinson-Durbin algorithm. The optimal prediction order varies between 1 and 12 for standard compression levels (up to order 32 in high-compression mode). In the residue stage, FLAC calculates the difference between the predicted and actual audio: this residue signal has much less energy than the original signal. In the entropy coding stage, the residues are encoded with Rice code (also called Golomb-Rice code), which is extremely efficient for Laplacian distributions like those typically produced by audio prediction residues. FLAC compression levels 0 through 8 vary primarily in the search depth for the optimal predictor: level 0 uses a simple predictor (fixed order), levels 1-8 use LPC with increasing order. The size difference between level 0 and level 8 is typically 10-15%, while the encoding time difference can be 10x or more. For practical archival use, level 5 (default in most tools) is the optimal point on the quality/speed curve.
The high-quality digital audio archiving workflow has a well-established de facto standard in the audiophile community: CD ripping with EAC (Exact Audio Copy, developed by Andre Wiethoff in 1997) configured in secure mode with AccurateRip verification, followed by encoding to FLAC at level 8 with complete Vorbis Comment tags including ReplayGain. This workflow guarantees that the rip is bit-perfect (identical to the original CD) and fully documented. For high-resolution music downloaded from platforms like Qobuz, HDtracks, Bandcamp, or Beatport (which offer downloads in FLAC at 24-bit/96kHz or 24-bit/192kHz), FLAC is the native distribution format. High-fidelity streaming services also use FLAC internally: Tidal HiFi streams FLAC at 16-bit/44.1kHz (CD quality), and its MQA/Atmos tier uses a derived format. Qobuz streams FLAC up to 24-bit/192kHz. Apple Music uses ALAC (which is technically equivalent to FLAC in terms of fidelity) for its Lossless catalog. For users who want to preserve their CD collection or digital music with maximum fidelity for the future, converting WAV to FLAC is the recommended operation: it reduces size by half while maintaining absolute quality, with structured metadata and universal support across all modern players.