Add your M4V file
Drop one or more .m4v files onto the converter above, or browse for them. They load into browser memory only — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size-based pricing and no server queue.
M4V to ALAC
Pulling the soundtrack out of a .m4v video into .alac audio keeps what you can hear and drops the picture entirely. Free, private, and validated — the file never leaves your browser.
Private for supported formats — processed in your browser
Runs on your deviceConvert supported files
Drop M4V files here
Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.
Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.About converting MPEG-4 video to Apple Lossless audio
Pulling the soundtrack out of a .m4v video into .alac audio keeps what you can hear and drops the picture entirely. An .m4v file is Apple's flavor of the MPEG-4 container, used by iTunes for movies, TV episodes, and music videos. Structurally it is almost identical to .mp4, but the .m4v extension signaled iTunes-specific features such as chapter markers and, on purchased content, FairPlay copy protection.
ALAC, the Apple Lossless Audio Codec, compresses music with zero quality sacrifice, and the .alac extension is occasionally used to label such files explicitly even though the codec normally travels inside an .m4a container. Decoding reproduces the original samples exactly, making it Apple's counterpart to FLAC. For this route the practical draw is native on every Apple platform from iOS to HomePod and mathematically lossless reconstruction — balanced against compresses slightly worse than FLAC on average, which is worth knowing before you commit a large batch.
Why convert M4V to ALAC?
The usual reason to take .alac audio out of a .m4v file is that only the sound matters — a talk, interview, song, or podcast segment. Keeping the video stream would waste storage, and a dedicated audio file is easier to trim, tag, and play. On the source side, fairPlay-protected files play only in Apple apps on authorized devices, and no converter can open them; on the target side, the payoff is native on every Apple platform from iOS to HomePod, which is exactly what you want for building a lossless library that syncs cleanly to iPhones and the Music app.
M4V vs ALAC at a glance
| Aspect | MPEG-4 video (.m4v) | Apple Lossless audio (.alac) |
|---|---|---|
| Format type | Container — quality depends on the codecs and settings inside | Lossless — every pixel or sample is preserved exactly |
| How it stores data | identical ISO base media layout to MP4, distinguished only by branding atoms and the extension | linear-prediction compression conceptually similar to FLAC, typically reaching 40 to 60 percent of PCM size |
| Strongest at | playing back iTunes-era video libraries | building a lossless library that syncs cleanly to iPhones and the Music app |
| Weak spot | fairPlay-protected files play only in Apple apps on authorized devices, and no converter can open them | compresses slightly worse than FLAC on average |
| Metadata | full iTunes atom metadata: title, show, season, episode, artwork, chapters, and content ratings | inherits the full iTunes metadata atom set from its MPEG-4 container, including artwork, composer, and grouping fields |
Pick ALAC as the output
Select .alac in the output menu next to each file. The menu only offers targets this engine can genuinely produce, so if ALAC is selectable, the route is real and validated.
Convert on your device
Press Convert. A WebAssembly FFmpeg build demuxes the audio track and re-encodes it locally; the video stream is simply discarded.
Verify and download
Each result is signature-checked before the download unlocks, so a failed encode can never masquerade as a valid ALAC file. Outputs keep the original filename with the .alac extension.
M4V to ALAC questions, answered
Will converting M4V to ALAC lose quality?
Since m4v is container-oriented and alac is lossless-oriented, the conversion preserves the source content exactly as stored; no additional compression pass is applied beyond what .alac itself requires.
Is it private to convert M4V files here?
Yes — the .m4v file is processed inside your browser tab and never uploaded. A WebAssembly FFmpeg build demuxes the audio track and re-encodes it locally; the video stream is simply discarded. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.
Where will the ALAC file work?
Every Apple device and application plays ALAC natively, and cross-platform players such as VLC and foobar2000 handle it on Windows, Linux, and Android. Outside the Apple world support varies by player, which is why cross-platform archives still tend to favor FLAC.
Will the ALAC file be bigger or smaller than my M4V?
Much smaller — the video stream is usually 80–95% of a .m4v file's weight, and it is discarded entirely. The remaining audio is re-encoded at the bitrate implied by your quality setting.
What happens to the metadata in my M4V file?
This converter strips container metadata deliberately (the FFmpeg command runs with metadata mapping disabled) so exported files do not leak recording details. In the source, full iTunes atom metadata: title, show, season, episode, artwork, chapters, and content ratings; none of it is transmitted anywhere because the file never leaves your browser.