.flac
Low riskFree Lossless Audio Codec
Lossless audio compression that reduces CD-quality recordings to roughly half the size of WAV. The de-facto choice for music archival.
MIME types
- audio/flac
Category
audio
What opens this file
- VLC
- foobar2000
- Audacity
- Music.app (macOS Big Sur+)
- iTunes via plug-ins
How to open by OS
Windows
- Groove on Windows 10+, VLC, foobar2000.
Mac
- Music.app on Big Sur+ or VLC.
Linux
- VLC, Rhythmbox, Audacious.
Ios
- Music (iOS 11+) and VLC.
Android
- Stock music apps and Poweramp.
Safety notes
- Decoder CVEs are rare but have occurred. Still, lossless compression keeps the overall risk profile low.
Common mistakes
- Sending FLAC over Bluetooth re-encodes via the codec on the link, defeating the lossless promise — value shows up on wired listening.
- Tag handling (Vorbis comments) varies between apps. Standardise on one tagger to avoid metadata churn.