APE to ALAC Converter
Processing entirely on your device — large files may take a moment.
APE (Monkey's Audio) squeezes music harder than FLAC at the cost of slower decoding — the audiophile archiver of the 2000s, still everywhere on music forums. Convert ALAC to FLAC for non-Apple players, or MP3 for sharing.
Because the whole conversion happens on your device, it is instant, unlimited and genuinely private — no accounts, no watermarks, no files on anyone's server. Multiple files are converted in one go.
How APE compares to ALAC
| APE | ALAC | |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | MAC header + APE frames | MP4 (alac sample entry) container |
| Types / schema | Lossless, 16-32-bit PCM | Lossless, 16-32-bit |
| Compatibility | ffmpeg,foobar2000, Monkey's Audio | iOS, macOS, iTunes, ffmpeg |
| Best for | Music forum album archives | Apple-ecosystem lossless libraries |
How to convert APE to ALAC
- 1
Select your files
Drag & drop your APE files onto the area above, or click to browse. You can add multiple files at once for batch conversion.
- 2
Convert instantly
Click "Convert to ALAC". The conversion runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly — no upload, no queue, no waiting.
- 3
Download results
Download each converted ALAC file individually, or grab everything at once as a ZIP archive.
About the APE format
Monkey's Audio (APE) is the compression-per-bit champion of lossless audio: typically 5-8% smaller than FLAC, paid for with CPU-heavy decode. An entire decade of music-forum album shares from the mid-2000s exists only as APE, often split into .cue-sheet + single-image files.
Conversion to FLAC keeps every sample and finally makes the album playable in car stereos and phones; the ffmpeg APE decoder handles the standard versions including the 4000-series compression.
+ Strengths
- ✓Best-in-class lossless ratios
- ✓Free and open (original was freeware)
- ✓Cue-sheet album pairs are common
! Limitations
- −Decode speed is 5-10x slower than FLAC
- −Almost no hardware support
- −Format stability criticized historically
About the ALAC format
ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) is Apple's FLAC equivalent: bit-exact lossless compression inside an MP4 container, opened-source in 2011 and now native on every Apple device and most server-side pipelines. It is what iTunes Store sells as "lossless" and what iPhone recordings encode to by default.
For non-Apple players FLAC is the safer target, and conversion is sample-exact in both directions — the decode is handled by ffmpeg's native ALAC decoder without any Apple runtime.
+ Strengths
- ✓Native on every Apple device
- ✓Open source since 2011
- ✓Reasonable sizes inside MP4
! Limitations
- −Outside Apple ecosystems FLAC wins
- −Slightly worse ratios than FLAC
- −Confusing .m4a extension doubles as lossy
Why convert APE to ALAC?
There is a concrete reason this conversion exists: Decode speed is 5-10x slower than FLAC ALAC sidesteps that — Native on every Apple device If that is your situation, the tool above settles it in seconds, entirely on your device.
Frequently asked questions
Is this APE to ALAC converter really free?
Yes — completely free, with no sign-up, no watermark and no daily conversion limits. The site is supported by advertising.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The conversion runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly, so your files never leave your device — that is what makes it instant and private.
Does it work on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android?
Yes. Anything with a modern browser works: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. No software installation is required.
Is there a file size limit for APE to ALAC?
The only limit is your device's memory, since nothing is uploaded. Files up to a few hundred megabytes work fine on a modern desktop browser; very large files simply take a little longer.
Will converting APE to ALAC reduce audio quality?
If ALAC is lossless, the output contains everything the APE file contains — no further loss is added. If ALAC is lossy, one recompression pass is unavoidable; the quality slider controls how much. Loss that already happened in the source file can never be undone by converting.
Are tags like title and artist preserved?
Tag handling varies between target formats and this conversion focuses on the audio itself. For archival copies where tags matter, keep the original file; the converted copy is for playback and sharing.