Convert WAV to FLAC
Compress an uncompressed WAV into a FLAC at roughly half the size, losing nothing. This is not the same trade as converting to MP3: FLAC's compression is mathematically reversible, so decoding a FLAC returns exactly the samples that went into it. You get the same audio in half the space, and you can get the WAV back whenever you want it.
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Up to 50 MB. Deleted automatically after 30 minutes.
What it does
- Lossless — every sample is recoverable exactly
- Typically around half the size of the WAV
- Proper support for tags and artwork
- No watermark and no sign-up
How to use WAV to FLAC
- 1
Add the WAV
Drop the file in or choose it from your computer. WAV files are large, so the 50 MB limit is reached quickly.
- 2
Convert
The samples are compressed losslessly into a FLAC. Nothing is discarded and nothing is approximated.
- 3
Store it
Keep the FLAC as the archive copy. Decoding it back to WAV later returns the identical audio.
Two different meanings of "smaller"
People reach for a converter wanting a smaller file and are offered two things that are not alike at all.
MP3, AAC and their relatives get you to roughly a tenth of the size by discarding audio the encoder judges you will not notice. It works remarkably well and it is permanent — the removed material is not stored compactly, it is not stored.
FLAC gets you to roughly half by finding a more efficient way to describe exactly the same samples. Nothing is judged and nothing is removed. Decoding returns the original, and that is a property you can test rather than trust.
Which you want depends on whether the file is a copy or a master.
How it works
The WAV's samples are analyzed and encoded losslessly. FLAC predicts each sample from the ones before it and stores only the difference, which is small when audio is predictable and larger when it is not. That is why the compression ratio varies with the material — speech and quiet passages compress well, dense loud music compresses least.
Nothing is approximated at any point. The process is reversible by construction.
Where the space actually goes
An uncompressed WAV spends the same number of bytes on every second regardless of what is in it. Ten seconds of silence costs exactly what ten seconds of orchestra costs, because the format has no concept of one being simpler.
FLAC does have that concept, which is why a spoken-word recording with pauses in it can come out at forty per cent while a loud continuous mix comes out at sixty. Neither result is better or worse in quality terms; they are the same audio.
The tagging difference is underrated
WAV was defined in 1991 and its metadata support has been argued about ever since. Titles, dates and notes written by one application frequently disappear when another reads the file, and artwork rarely survives at all.
FLAC's tagging is clean, standard and supported everywhere, including embedded images. If you are archiving more than a handful of recordings, being able to describe them in a way that stays attached to the file is worth more than the storage saved.
What to do with the WAV afterwards
Delete it, once you have checked the FLAC opens. That is the unusual advice here, and it is safe precisely because the conversion is lossless — the FLAC is not a copy of your master, it is your master in a smaller box, and a WAV can be made from it at any time.
Examples
Archiving a field recording
The strongest case. A master recording halves in size and stays exactly recoverable, which is what an archive format is for.
A recording that needs tagging
WAV's metadata support is an afterthought and software disagrees about it. FLAC has a clean, well-supported system for titles, dates and notes.
Frequently asked questions
Is FLAC really lossless?
Yes, and verifiably so. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and its compression is reversible in the way a zip file is — decoding returns exactly the bytes that were encoded. You can convert a WAV to FLAC and back and compare the two files sample by sample; they match. This is a different kind of claim from 'you will not hear the difference', which is what a lossy format offers.
How much smaller will it be?
Usually forty to sixty per cent of the WAV, depending on the material. Speech and sparse recordings compress well because there is a lot of near-silence and predictable structure. Dense, loud music compresses least. FLAC finds a more efficient description of the samples rather than removing any, so how well it does depends entirely on how predictable the audio is.
Why not just use MP3 if I want it smaller?
Because they answer different questions. MP3 gets you to a tenth of the size by permanently discarding audio, which is right for a listening copy on a phone. FLAC gets you to half by describing the same audio more efficiently, which is right for the copy you will still want in ten years. Most people keep FLAC as the master and generate MP3s from it when a device needs one.
Does FLAC handle tags better than WAV?
Considerably. WAV's metadata mechanisms were bolted onto a 1991 format and software disagrees about how to read and write them, so titles and notes often vanish between applications. FLAC has a clean, universally supported tagging system including embedded artwork. For a library of any size that difference matters more than the space saved.
Further reading
- Lossless Audio Costs 40% of the Original and People Still Avoid ItLossless audio has a reputation as the choice you make when storage is no object. The measured ratio suggests otherwise: the same recording that took 5.3 MB as an uncompressed WAV took 2.1 MB as FLAC, bit for bit identical. That is a better result than lossless image compression usually achieves, and on difficult material rather than easy.
- A Lossless Conversion Changed Every Pixel in the ImageConvert a 16-bit PNG to lossless WebP, convert it back, and compare the two files pixel by pixel. Every single pixel is different. Nothing malfunctioned and the encoder did exactly what it advertises — because the word lossless makes a narrower promise than almost everybody assumes it does.