Audio Interchange File Format

Unknown

audio

The Audio Interchange File Format (Audio IFF) provides a standard for storing sampled sounds. The format allows for the storage of monaural or multichannel sampled sounds at a variety of sample rates and sample widths. Audio IFF conforms to the " EA IFF 85" Standard for Interchange Format Files developed by Electronic Arts. Audio IFF is primarily an interchange format, although application designers should find it flexible enough to use as a data storage format as well. If an application does choose to use a different storage format, it should be able to convert to and from the format defined in this document. This will facilitate the sharing of sound data between applications. Audio IFF is the result of several meetings held with music developers over a period of ten months in 1987-88. Differences between AIFF versions are related to implementation within Apple operating systems and are not directly encoded within an AIFF file. As such it is not possible to distinguish between distinct AIFF versions through PRONOM identification.

Identify it

Extensions	`.aif.aiff`
MIME types	`audio/aiffaudio/x-aiff`
Signatures	`464f524d` at byte 0 (Audio Interchange File Format)
PRONOM	`fmt/414`
Wikidata	`Q27863257`

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Open it

Listed for the family; check that the software handles this version.

cdparanoiaOpen sourcewrites · GNU General Public License
FFmpegOpen sourcereads and writes · LGPL-2.1-or-later / GPL-2.0-or-later
Free Lossless Audio CodecOpen sourcereads and writes · 3-clause BSD License / GNU General Public License, version 2.0 / GNU Library General Public License, version 2.0
libsndfileOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU Lesser General Public License
Q141647665Open sourcewrites · Apache Software License 2.0 / MIT License
Q141674392Open sourcereads and writes · Apache Software License 2.0 / MIT License
Q191782Open sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
SoXOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License
Apache TikaOpen sourcereads · Apache Software License 2.0
ExifToolOpen sourcereads · Artistic License / GNU General Public License, version 1.0 or later
JHOVEOpen sourcereads · GNU Lesser General Public License
Kid3Open sourcereads · GNU General Public License / GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
Music on ConsoleOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License
mutagenOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
PhotoRecOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License
Q117725Open sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
Q1576579Open sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
Q3898244Open sourcereads · BSD licenses / GNU General Public License / GNU Lesser General Public License
SweepOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License
The Freesound ProjectOpen sourcereads · Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported / Creative Commons CC0 License
VLC media playerOpen sourcereads · GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 or later
Adobe Acrobat 9 Proreads and writes
Adobe Auditionwrites
Awave Studioreads and writes
EZ CD Audio Converterreads and writes
GarageBandreads and writes
Mathematicareads and writes · proprietary license
Sound Forge XP 3.0reads and writes
Sound Forge XP Studioreads and writes
Ableton Livereads · proprietary license
Absynthreads
ACD FotoCanvas Litereads
ACDSee 5reads
ACID XPressreads
Adobe After Effectsreads · proprietary license
Adobe Encorereads
Adobe Premiere 5.1reads
Adobe Premiere 6.0reads
Adobe Premiere Proreads · proprietary license
AIMP 3.5reads

And 35 more in the JSON record.

Convert it

To	With	Fidelity	Command and losses
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) 1.2.1	FFmpeg	Lossless	`ffmpeg -i in.aiff out.flac` Lossless for decoded audio; a lossy source stays as degraded as it was. WAV may reduce bit depth or drop metadata.
Waveform Audio	FFmpeg	Lossless	`ffmpeg -i in.aiff out.wav` Lossless for decoded audio; a lossy source stays as degraded as it was. WAV may reduce bit depth or drop metadata.
Matroska 1-4	FFmpeg	Lossy	`ffmpeg -i in.aiff out.mkv` Re-encoded with lossy codecs by default; try `-c copy` to remux without re-encoding when the codecs fit the container.
MPEG 1/2 Audio Layer 3	FFmpeg	Lossy	`ffmpeg -i in.aiff out.mp3` Lossy re-encoding.
MPEG-4 Part 14	FFmpeg	Lossy	`ffmpeg -i in.aiff out.mp4` Re-encoded with lossy codecs by default; try `-c copy` to remux without re-encoding when the codecs fit the container.
Ogg	FFmpeg	Lossy	`ffmpeg -i in.aiff out.ogg` Lossy re-encoding.
WebM	FFmpeg	Lossy	`ffmpeg -i in.aiff out.webm` Re-encoded with lossy codecs by default; try `-c copy` to remux without re-encoding when the codecs fit the container.

Sources

From PRONOM, Wikidata. Updated 2026-10-20.

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