macos – What are the command line choices for afconvert?

Audio File Convert exports to twenty audio file codecs and a mess of codecs, all of that are proven with the -hf possibility.

Uncompressed Audio

File codecs: AIFC AIFF NeXT Sd2f WAVE RF64

The unique codecs for storing audio information have been all uncompressed as a result of these are straightforward to work with, and will be performed by even very early CPUs. Nonetheless, uncompressed audio information are very massive, simply going as much as 10 MB/minute. These codecs all share related codec choices like I8 BEI16 BEI24 BEI32 BEF32 BEF64. Smaller numbers give smaller information, however bigger numbers give larger high quality. If you happen to’re undecided what to decide on, go along with BEI32 or LEI32.

• BE large endian
• LE little endian
• I integer
• UI unsigned integer
• F floating level
• 8/16/24/32/64 bits per pattern

It’s best to solely must specify these choices for these older uncompressed codecs.

Compressed Audio

File codecs: 3gpp 3gp2 adts ac-3 amrf m4af m4bf caff ec-3 flac mp4f

Not each codec is supported by each file format, however you need to use this as a information to get began selecting your codec. As soon as you’ve got chosen a codec, you’ll be able to have a look at the output of afconvert -hf to select an acceptable container file format.

(Word: I’ve excluded the MPG codecs similar to MPG3/MP3 from this record as a result of they only don’t work.)

Additionally see this reply for more information on the assorted codecs and the place they’re outlined.

Syntax

As soon as you’ve got chosen a file format and codec, you run afconvert like this:

afconvert -f FORMAT -d CODEC SOURCEFILE [-o DESTINATIONFILE]

It’s essential to specify each the file format and the codec, in any other case an error is proven. If you happen to omit the -o possibility, afconvert will choose a reputation and extension primarily based on the opposite inputs.

Examples

If in case you have an audio file referred to as MyAudio.m4a you could possibly attempt these instructions.

# AIFF
afconvert -f AIFF -d BEI32 MyAudio.m4a -o MyAudio.aiff

# WAVE
afconvert -f WAVE -d LEI32 MyAudio.m4a -o MyAudio.wav

# Apple Lossless
afconvert -f m4af -d alac MyAudio.m4a -o MyAudio.m4a

# FLAC
afconvert -f flac -d flac MyAudio.m4a -o MyAudio.flac

# AAC
afconvert -f mp4f -d aac MyAudio.m4a -o MyAudio.mp4