Manatee

How to add FLAC files to the Music app on a Mac

· 6 min read

The Music app on a Mac does not import FLAC, and it does not tell you so: you drag the files in and nothing happens. To get the albums into your library, convert them first to a format Music accepts. Apple Lossless keeps the audio identical to the FLAC, and AAC in an M4A file makes much smaller files for a phone. Then drag the converted files into Music.

Why nothing happens when you drag a FLAC in

macOS itself understands FLAC. Select one in Finder and press the space bar, and Quick Look plays it. QuickTime Player opens it too. The Music app is the exception. It imports MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV, and quietly ignores everything else, with no error message to explain why.

That also rules out Music’s own converter. The File, Convert command only works on tracks that are already in the library, and a FLAC never gets that far.

Pick the format first

The right target depends on what you want the library for.

  • Apple Lossless (ALAC, in an .m4a file). Lossless, like FLAC. The audio that comes out is the same audio that went in, and the files are far smaller than WAV. The best choice for a collection you care about.
  • AAC (also an .m4a file). Lossy, and a fraction of the size. A good choice when the music is headed for a phone with limited storage and the FLACs stay on a drive as masters.
  • WAV. Lossless but uncompressed, so the files are large, and it carries tags poorly. Useful as a stepping stone, not as a destination.
  • MP3. Only worth choosing if the same files also need to play on older devices; how to convert FLAC to MP3 covers that case.

If lossy and lossless are unfamiliar terms, what happens to audio when you convert it explains the difference.

The lossless route in Terminal

macOS ships with a command line converter, afconvert, that reads FLAC and writes Apple Lossless. Open Terminal, go to the album folder, and run it on every FLAC there:

cd ~/Music/Incoming/Album
for f in *.flac; do afconvert -f m4af -d alac "$f" "${f%.flac}.m4a"; done

Each track gets an .m4a file beside it, and the FLAC files are left as they are. Drag the new .m4a files into Music.

One caution: afconvert converts the audio. Do not count on it to carry the tags or the cover art across. The tracks may arrive in Music named after their files, with no album or artist, which the section on names and artwork below deals with.

The lossless route without Terminal

If you would rather not use Terminal, go through WAV and let Music make the Apple Lossless files itself.

  1. Open Manatee, choose Convert, and drop in the FLAC files or the whole album folder. Choose WAV. FLAC to WAV is lossless, and each WAV is written next to its original, which is never modified.
  2. Drag the WAV files into the Music window, or choose File, Import in Music.
  3. In Music, choose Music, Settings, click Files, then Import Settings. Set Import Using to Apple Lossless Encoder and click OK.
  4. Select the tracks you just imported and choose File, Convert, Create Apple Lossless Version.
  5. Music now holds two copies of each track. Choose View, Show View Options and turn on the Kind column so you can tell them apart, then delete the WAV versions. Music asks whether to keep the files or move them to the Trash.

If you rip CDs with a different setting, put Import Settings back afterward. How to convert a FLAC to WAV has more on that first step, including WAV’s 4 GB ceiling for very long recordings.

The compact route: AAC

When space matters more than a perfect copy, convert straight to M4A.

  1. Open Manatee and choose Convert.
  2. Drop in the FLAC files or the folder.
  3. Choose M4A as the target.
  4. Drag the resulting files into Music.

This is a lossy conversion, done once from a lossless source, which is the best case for lossy audio. For everyday listening the result is very hard to tell from the original. Keep the FLAC files, though: they are the masters, and you can always make new copies from them later. Manatee runs entirely on the Mac, with no uploads and no account, and it is free for 24 hours with every feature, then $9 once. How to convert audio to M4A goes further into when M4A is the right call.

Fix the names and artwork

A FLAC collection is usually well tagged. Whether those tags survive depends on the route. WAV holds tags inconsistently, so tracks that went through WAV often arrive without them. M4A holds tags properly, so convert one album first and look at it in Music before you do the rest.

Two habits make this painless.

Before converting, make sure each file name starts with the track number and title, such as 03 Night Drive.flac. When a track has no tags, Music uses the file name as the song title, so tidy names give you a tidy list.

After importing, fix a whole album at once:

  1. Select all of the album’s tracks in Music.
  2. Choose Song, Info, or press Command-I, and confirm that you want to edit multiple items.
  3. Fill in Album, Artist, Album Artist, Year and Genre once. They apply to every selected track.
  4. Click the Artwork tab and add the cover image.

Track numbers and titles are per song, so correct those individually if the file names did not supply them.

Getting the music onto an iPhone

Once the tracks are in the library, they behave like any others. Connect the iPhone, select it in the Finder sidebar, click Music, and sync the albums or playlists you want.

If the phone is short on space and you chose Apple Lossless, look at the General tab of that same Finder window. The option named Convert higher bit rate songs to AAC makes compact copies for the phone during the sync, while the lossless versions stay in the library on the Mac.

Questions

Does converting FLAC to Apple Lossless lose any quality? No. Both are lossless, so the audio decodes to exactly the same sound. Only the packaging changes.

Will high-resolution FLAC files stay high resolution? Apple Lossless supports high sample rates and 24-bit audio. Convert one file, select it in Music, press Command-I, and check the sample rate and sample size on the File tab before you convert a whole collection.

Should I delete the FLAC files afterward? If you converted to AAC, keep them: they are the only full-quality copies. If you converted to Apple Lossless, the audio is safe either way, but the FLAC files still hold your original tags and play on equipment that does not read Apple formats. Keep them at least until the library has been checked and backed up.

Can I just play FLAC without importing it? Yes. Quick Look and QuickTime Player both play FLAC. You only need to convert when you want the tracks in the Music library or synced to a phone.