Sobre os arquivos AIFF

Áudio AIFF

Lançado em 1988 Por Apple Computer

Formato Apple sem perdas (1988). Padrão Mac legacy para áudio profissional. Substituído por FLAC universal em workflows modernos.

Família

Audio Files

Extensão

.aiff

Tipo MIME

audio/aiff, audio/x-aiff

Pode ser usado como

Entrada Saída

A história

COMO NASCEU O
FORMATO AIFF.

AIFF — Audio Interchange File Format — shipped with Apple’s Audio IFF specification in 1988, based on Electronic Arts’ Interchange File Format (IFF). The goal matched WAV’s on Windows: a simple uncompressed container for studio-quality audio. AIFF stores PCM samples in big-endian order (because it came from the 68000-era Macintosh) while WAV stores them little-endian (Intel x86). That’s the only meaningful difference between the two.

AIFF was the native audio format of classic Mac OS and remains ubiquitous in professional audio workflows on macOS. Pro Tools, Logic Pro, and most audio-for-video pipelines accept AIFF without conversion. A compressed variant, AIFF-C, allows codecs like IMA ADPCM or MACE, but in practice "AIFF" almost always means uncompressed PCM.

CURIOSIDADES E
FATOS INTERESSANTES.

AIFF and WAV store the same data — the only difference is byte order (AIFF is big-endian, WAV is little-endian).

AIFF descends from Electronic Arts' Interchange File Format, used in 1985 for Amiga IFF graphics.

Pro Tools and Logic Pro prefer AIFF over WAV because classic Macs were big-endian.

AIFF files carry four-character "chunk IDs" like SSND (sound data) and COMM (common info) readable in a hex editor.

The compressed variant AIFF-C is so rare that most audio software treats "AIFF" as a synonym for uncompressed PCM.

VANTAGENS E
LIMITAÇÕES.

Vantagens

Lossless and uncompressed — bit-exact audio reproduction.
Native to macOS and all Apple Pro Audio apps.
Simple structure — trivially parsed by audio libraries.
Supports up to 32-bit float, 192 kHz, and multi-channel audio.
Rich metadata via named chunks (annotations, markers, MIDI).

Limitações

Enormous file sizes — 10 MB per minute at CD quality.
No built-in compression — use FLAC for lossless with smaller files.
Big-endian byte order confuses tools written on little-endian hardware.
Less common on Windows; WAV is the local equivalent.

Tamanhos típicos de arquivo

3-min song (CD quality)

30 MB

3-min song (24-bit / 96 kHz)

100 MB

Full album (CD, 10 tracks)

450 MB

Especificações técnicas

MIME types: audio/aiff, audio/x-aiff
Extensions: .aif, .aiff, .aifc
Byte order: Big-endian
Max bit depth: 32 bits (PCM or float)
Max sample rate: 192 kHz (practical); unlimited (spec)

CONVERTER A PARTIR DE
AIFF

aiff mp3 aiff wav aiff flac aiff aac aiff m4a aiff ogg aiff opus aiff wma

CONVERTER PARA
AIFF

aif aiff gsm aiff voc aiff w64 aiff shn aiff sox aiff snd aiff 8svx aiff tta aiff wv aiff spx aiff mp2 aiff dsf aiff dff aiff mp3 aiff wav aiff flac aiff aac aiff m4a aiff ogg aiff opus aiff wma aiff ac3 aiff au aiff caf aiff amr aiff mka aiff ape aiff dts aiff mid aiff ra aiff alac aiff tak aiff

Casos de uso comuns

Mac audio production, music mastering, professional editing.