FLAC For Mac

FLAC, or Free Lossless Audio Codec, is designed as an alternative to other audio encoding formats that avoids any loss in quality upon compressing files. Support for the format is widespread and growing, and the project is completely open-source, free to be used for any purpose.

Of course, a suitable tool is needed to either create or decode FLAC files. While frontends designed for less experienced users are available, you can also try your hand at using the versatile, bare-bones command-line utility.

You do not need to be an expert in order to install and run the utility, as only a few simple commands are necessary to complete the procedure.

First off, you need to launch the Terminal app, navigate to the FLAC folder, and then run the following commands:”./configure”, “make”, “sudo make install” and, finally, “flac”. Naturally, you need to wait for the previous operation to be completed before entering a new command.

Once the utility has been installed, it can be used to encode or decode files. The supported input formats are RIFF WAVE, WAVE64, AIFF, RF64, FLAC, OGG FLAC and raw interleaved samples, while decoded files can be exported to RIFF WAVE, WAVE64, AIFF, RF64 and raw interleaved samples.

All operations are performed by running various commands, together with any necessary arguments. The full list can be viewed in the Terminal window, but you can also read more detailed explanations by consulting the available documentation.

FLAC is a great alternative to other, lossy, audio coding formats, and this command-line tool enables you to encode or decode audio files on your Mac.

While it may not be accessible to everyone, those who have no qualms about firing up the command console should have no problems making the most of its comprehensive feature set.