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How-To Guide

How to Convert APE to FLAC

Monkey's Audio (APE) is a lossless audio format that offers excellent compression but is poorly supported outside of Windows and dedicated audiophile players. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is the universal lossless standard — supported on every platform, streaming service, and audio device. Converting APE to FLAC is a lossless operation: the audio content is identical, only the container and compression algorithm change.

See what FormatDrop converts
FormatDrop doesn't convert APE to FLAC yet. The methods below use free tools that do. FormatDrop's own converters cover common image, audio, video and PDF formats, all in your browser.

Free tools for APE to FLAC

  1. 1

    foobar2000 (free, Windows and Mac)

    foobar2000 reads APE files. Add them to a playlist, select them, right-click → Convert → … → set Output format to FLAC → Convert. Tags carry over.

  2. 2

    XLD (free, Mac)

    XLD decodes Monkey's Audio. In Preferences → General, set Output format to FLAC, then drag the APE files onto the XLD icon. If the APE is one big album file with a .cue sheet, open the .cue in XLD to get one FLAC per track.

  3. 3

    FFmpeg (command line)

    ffmpeg -i input.ape -c:a flac output.flac. Add -c:v copy to keep embedded cover art. For a whole folder: for f in *.ape; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a flac "${f%.ape}.flac"; done.

  4. 4

    Check before deleting the APE

    Play a few tracks and check the tags. FLAC files are usually a few percent bigger than the same audio in APE, since APE squeezes harder.

Why convert APE to FLAC?

APE is the lossless format that only audiophile Windows users can comfortably use. FLAC is the lossless format that works everywhere. Converting between them loses nothing and gains universal compatibility.

Frequently asked questions

Is APE to FLAC conversion truly lossless?
Yes. Both APE and FLAC are lossless codecs. The conversion decodes APE to uncompressed PCM audio and then encodes that PCM to FLAC — the same samples in, the same samples out. You can verify with MD5 checksums using `ffmpeg -i input.ape -f md5 -` and comparing to an independently decoded version.
How do I convert APE to FLAC with FFmpeg?
`ffmpeg -i input.ape -c:a flac output.flac`. For smaller files: `ffmpeg -i input.ape -c:a flac -compression_level 8 output.flac`. FFmpeg's default is level 5; higher levels only make encoding slower and files a little smaller, never better-sounding.
What about the CUE sheet that came with my APE file?
Large APE releases often come as a single .ape file + .cue sheet. To split into per-track FLAC files, use CUETools (Windows) or cuebreakpoints + shntool on Linux/Mac. The cue sheet contains chapter markers for all tracks in the APE image.
Will metadata (tags) transfer from APE to FLAC?
APE uses APEv2 tags; FLAC uses Vorbis comments. FFmpeg copies basic tags (title, artist, album, year, track) automatically. Album art embedded in the APE file is also copied. Verify with `ffprobe output.flac` after conversion.
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