FLAC to ALAC Converter

A shell script to batch-convert FLAC audio files to ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) format.

Overview

FLAC and ALAC are both lossless audio formats — converting between them results in no quality loss. ALAC is natively supported by Apple devices and iTunes/Music, making it the preferred format for Apple ecosystems.

Requirements

• macOS
• ffmpeg

brew install ffmpeg

Usage

chmod +x flac-alac-converter.sh

# Convert all subdirectories that contain FLAC files
./flac-alac-converter.sh

# Convert a specific album directory
./flac-alac-converter.sh "/path/to/AlbumName"

# Convert a single FLAC file (output placed next to source)
./flac-alac-converter.sh track01.flac

# Preview without writing any files
./flac-alac-converter.sh --dry-run
./flac-alac-converter.sh -n "/path/to/album"
./flac-alac-converter.sh --dry-run track01.flac

Output

For each album directory, a sibling directory is created with ALA appended (e.g. AlbumName ALA). FLAC files are converted to .m4a (ALAC); .jpg and .cue files are copied as-is. Embedded cover art is preserved.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.