Writer Kirk McElhearn wrote about our site in MacWorld back in December 2009, and in March 2010 he wrote to me to point out a particularly embarrassing typo. So naturally I asked him if he wouldn't mind helping out around Passionato during our grand opening. We've gotten quite a few requests for some help for customers who live in a Mac environment who want to take advantage of our great FLAC library.
So Kirk put together the following guide - we'll be moving it to our home page, but for right now, we want to make sure it's visible so we're putting up on the blog.
Please let us know what you think - send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Using FLAC files with Macs
If you own a Mac, you may find that using FLAC files is a bit of a problem. Part of the reason is that iTunes, the program you're most likely to use to manage your music files, doesn't support the FLAC format. This means you need to use alternate tools for managing music or for burning CDs from your downloaded FLAC files. Here's how you can use FLAC files with a Mac, how you can get them into iTunes, and even onto your iPod.
Since iTunes doesn't support FLAC, you'll need some extra software to use FLAC files on a Mac. If you simply want to play the files back on your Mac, you can use the free programs Play or Cog.
If you simply want to burn your FLAC files to CD, you can use the free program Max. (The web sites for these programs will tell you how to play music or burn CDs.)
If you want a commercial program that offers a wide variety of features, including burning FLACs to CD, you can purchase Roxio Toast, which burns music and video files to CD and DVD.
But many people want to use iTunes on their Macs, and put their music on an iPod. To do so, you need to convert the FLAC files to a format iTunes can work with.
FLAC is a lossless audio format, meaning that, while the files are compressed, the music itself is not affected; the files are reduced in size with no loss of quality. When played back, the sound they provide is exactly the same as that from a CD. While iTunes doesn't support FLAC, it does work with another lossless format called Apple Lossless or ALAC. If you convert FLAC files to Apple Lossless format, you'll have files of the same quality that you can use with iTunes and an iPod.
We mentioned the free program Max earlier. In addition to burning FLACs to CD, this program can convert files from FLAC to Apple Lossless (and other formats). To do this, download the program, then launch it. Choose Max > Preferences, then click the Formats icon in the toolbar at the top of the window.
In the Available output formats section, scroll down until you see "Apple MPEG-4 Audio". Click that line, then click the + button below the Configured output formats section. A dialog displays above the window:
Click on Apple Lossless, then click OK. You'll now see "Apple MPEG-4 Audio (Apple Lossless) in the Configured output formats section of the window; click the checkbox at the left of that line.
Next, click the Output icon in the program's toolbar. In the Output files menu, choose "Same as source file." You can now close the preferences window by clicking the red close button at the top-left of the window.
From Max, choose File > Convert Files, navigate to the folder containing the FLAC files you want to convert, then select them all (click the first one in the list, press and hold the Shift key, then click the last one).
Click Open; Max will add the files to its File Conversion window. Click the Convert icon in this window's toolbar.
Max will open another window, labeled Encoder, and you'll see the progress as the files are converted. When this conversion is finished, you'll find the Apple Lossless files in the same folder as the original FLAC files. You'll be able to tell them by their file extensions: they end with .m4a.
To add the files to iTunes, open iTunes, then choose File > Add to Library. Navigate to the folder with the files, select the folder, then click Choose. (You don't need to worry about there being two types of files in the folder; iTunes will only import the files it can read, the Apple Lossless files.)
Once the files are in iTunes, you can use them as you use any other files in that program. You can make playlists, burn them to CD, and copy them to your iPod. Just remember that lossless files are larger than MP3 files (about twice the size of our MP3 files) so you won't be able to fit as many of them on your iPod.
Kirk McElhearn is a freelance writer, specialized in digital music and Macs. He's a senior contributor to MacWorld, where he writes a regular column about digital music. And he writes about more than just Macs on his personal website Kirkville. Kirk also reviews classical CDs for MusicWeb.
