Audio Interchange File Format
(AIFF)Filename extension| `.aiff
.aif
.aifc`

|

Internet media type| `audio/x-aiff
audio/aiff`
Type code| AIFF, AIFC
Uniform Type Identifier (UTI)| public.aiff-audio
public.aifc-audio
Developed by| Apple
Initial release| 21 January 1988; 38 years ago (1988-01-21)[1]
Latest release|

1.3
(January 4, 1989; 37 years ago (1989-01-04)
AIFF-C / July 1991; 34 years ago (1991-07)[2])

Type of format| Audio file format, container format
Extended from| IFF (File format)

Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange File Format (IFF, widely used on Amiga systems) and is most commonly used on Apple Macintosh computer systems.

The audio data in most AIFF files is uncompressed pulse-code modulation (PCM). This type of AIFF file uses much more disk space than lossy formats like MP3—about 10 MB for one minute of stereo audio at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and a bit depth of 16 bits. There is also a compressed variant of AIFF known as AIFF-C or AIFC, with various defined compression codecs.

In addition to audio data, AIFF can include loop point data and the musical note of a sample, for use by hardware samplers and musical applications.

The file extension for the standard AIFF format is `.aiff` or `.aif`. For the compressed format the preferred suffix is `.aifc`, but audio applications supporting the format also allow `.aiff` or `.aif`.

## Contents

* 1 AIFF on macOS
* 2 AIFF Apple Loops
* 3 Data format
* 4 Metadata
* 5 Common compression types
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links

## AIFF on macOS

This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (March 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

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With the development of the OS X operating system now known as macOS, Apple created a new type of AIFF which is, in effect, an alternative little-endian byte order format.[3][4]

Because the AIFF architecture has no provision for alternative byte order, Apple used the existing AIFF-C compression architecture, and created a "pseudo-compressed" codec called sowt (twos spelled backwards). The only difference between a standard AIFF file and an AIFF-C/sowt file is the byte order; there is no compression involved at all.[5]

Apple uses this new little-endian AIFF type as its standard on macOS. When a file is imported to or exported from iTunes in "AIFF" format, it is actually AIFF-C/sowt that is being used. When audio from an audio CD is imported by dragging to the macOS Desktop, the resulting file is also an AIFF-C/sowt. In all cases, Apple refers to the files simply as "AIFF", and uses the `.aiff` extension.

For the vast majority of users this technical situation is completely unnoticeable and irrelevant. The sound quality of standard AIFF and AIFF-C/sowt are identical, and the data can be converted back and forth without loss. Users of older audio applications, however, may find that an AIFF-C/sowt file will not play, or will prompt the user to convert the format on opening, or will play as static.

All traditional AIFF and AIFF-C files continue to work normally on macOS, and many third-party audio applications as well as hardware continue to use the standard AIFF big-endian byte order.

## AIFF Apple Loops

Apple has also created another recent extension to the AIFF format in the form of Apple Loops[6] used by GarageBand and Logic Pro, which allows the inclusion of data for pitch and tempo shifting by an application in the more common variety, and MIDI-sequence data and references to GarageBand playback instruments in another variety.

Apple Loops use either the `.aiff` (or `.aif`) or `.caf` extension regardless of type.

## Data format

An AIFF file is divided into a number of chunks.[7] Each chunk is identified by a chunk ID more broadly referred to as FourCC.

Types of chunks found in AIFF files:

* Common Chunk (required)
* Sound Data Chunk (required)
* Marker Chunk
* Instrument Chunk
* Comment Chunk
* Name Chunk
* Author Chunk
* Copyright Chunk
* Annotation Chunk
* Audio Recording Chunk
* MIDI Data Chunk
* Application Chunk
* ID3 Chunk

## Metadata

AIFF files can store metadata in Name, Author, Comment, Annotation, and Copyright chunks. An ID3v2 tag chunk can also be embedded in AIFF files, as well as an Application Chunk with Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data in it.[8]

## Common compression types

AIFF supports only uncompressed PCM data. AIFF-C also supports compressed audio formats, which can be specified in the "COMM" chunk. The compression type is "NONE" for PCM audio data. The compression type is accompanied by a printable name. Common compression types and names include, but are not limited to:

AIFF-C common compression types[1][9][10] Compression type  | Compression name  | Data  | Source

|
|
|

NONE  | not compressed  | PCM, big-endian  | Apple Inc.
sowt  | not compressed  | PCM, little-endian  | Apple Inc.
fl32  | 32-bit floating point  | IEEE 32-bit float  | Apple Inc.
fl64  | 64-bit floating point  | IEEE 64-bit float  | Apple Inc.
alaw  | ALaw 2:1  | 8-bit ITU-T G.711 A-law  | Apple Inc.
ulaw  | μLaw 2:1  | 8-bit ITU-T G.711 μ-law  | Apple Inc.
ALAW  | CCITT G.711 A-law  | 8-bit ITU-T G.711 A-law (64 kbit/s)  | SGI
ULAW  | CCITT G.711 u-law  | 8-bit ITU-T G.711 μ-law (64 kbit/s)  | SGI
FL32  | Float 32  | IEEE 32-bit float  | SoundHack & Csound
ADP4  | 4:1 Intel/DVI ADPCM  |  | Stéphane Tavenard (Audio Convert/Player) AmigaOS
ima4  | IMA 4:1  |  |
ACE2  | ACE 2-to-1  |  | Apple IIGS ACE (Audio Compression/Expansion)
ACE8  | ACE 8-to-3  |  |
DWVW  | Delta with variable word width  |  | TX16W Typhoon
MAC3  | MACE 3-to-1  |  | Apple Inc.
MAC6  | MACE 6-to-1  |  | Apple Inc.
Qclp  | Qualcomm PureVoice  |  | Qualcomm
QDMC  | QDesign Music  |  | QDesign
rt24  | RT24 50:1  |  | Voxware
rt29  | RT29 50:1  |  | Voxware
SDX2  | Square-Root-Delta  | Big-endian  | 3DO (Panasonic) / Mac (Apple)

## See also

* Apple Lossless (ALAC)
* FLAC
* WAV
* RIFF, the little-endian format corresponding to IFF
* OSType
* FourCC

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Apple Computer, Inc. (1989-01-04), Audio Interchange File Format, A Standard for Sampled Sound Files, Version 1.3, https://www.mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/Documents/AudioFormats/AIFF/Docs/AIFF-1.3.pdf, retrieved 2010-03-21
2. ↑ P. Kabal (2005-03-15). "Audio File Format Specifications - AIFF / AIFF-C Specifications". McGill University. https://www.mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/Documents/AudioFormats/AIFF/AIFF.html.
3. ↑ "Speech Synthesis Manager - OS X Manual". 2008-10-29. https://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/say.1.html.
4. ↑ "Supported Audio File and Data Formats in Mac OS X". 2008-11-13. https://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/musicaudio/Conceptual/CoreAudioOverview/SupportedAudioFormatsMacOSX/SupportedAudioFormatsMacOSX.html.
5. ↑ "Technical Q&A QTMRF04: QuickTime Sound". 1995-05-01. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/qa/qtmrf/qtmrf04.html.
6. ↑ "Logic Studio - Plug-ins & Sounds". https://www.apple.com/logic-pro/plugins-and-sounds/.
7. ↑ Kabal, Peter (2017-09-20). "Audio File Format Specifications". https://www-mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/Documents/AudioFormats/AIFF/AIFF.html.
8. ↑ "AIFF Tagging". November 18, 2013. http://aifftagging.blogspot.com.
9. ↑ Tom Erbe (1999). "AIFF-C Compression Types and Names". http://shoko.calarts.edu/~tre/AIFFC/comptype.html.
10. ↑ "AIFF-hul Module". 2005-05-09. http://hul.harvard.edu/jhove/aiff-hul.html.

## External links

* Audio Interchange File Format AIFF-C – Draft 08/26/91 – Apple Computer, Inc. – (archive.org backup)
* AIFF / AIFC Sound File Specifications – Draft 17/11/17 – (archive.org backup)

* v
* t
* e

Multimedia compression and container formats

Video
compression|

| ISO, IEC, MPEG|

* MJPEG
* Motion JPEG 2000
* MPEG-1
* MPEG-2
* Part 2
* MPEG-4
* Part 2 / ASP
* Part 10 / AVC
* MPEG-H
* Part 2 / HEVC
* MPEG-I
* Part 3 / VVC

|

ITU-T, VCEG|

* H.120
* DCT
* H.261
* H.262
* H.263
* H.264 / AVC
* H.265 / HEVC
* H.266 / VVC
* DV

SMPTE|

* VC-1
* VC-2
* VC-3
* VC-5

TrueMotion|

* TrueMotion S
* DCT
* VP3
* VP6
* VP7
* VP8
* VP9
* AV1

Others|

* Apple Video
* AVS
* Bink
* Cinepak
* Daala
* DVI
* EVC
* FFV1
* Huffyuv
* Indeo
* Lagarith
* Microsoft Video 1
* MSU Lossless
* OMS Video
* Pixlet
* ProRes 422
* ProRes 4444
* QuickTime
* Animation
* Graphics
* RealVideo
* RTVideo
* SheerVideo
* Smacker
* Sorenson Video/Spark
* Theora
* Thor
* WMV
* XEB
* YULS

Audio
compression|

| ISO, IEC, MPEG|

* MPEG-1 Layer II
* Multichannel
* MPEG-1 Layer I
* MPEG-1 Layer III (MP3)
* AAC
* HE-AAC
* AAC-LD
* MPEG Surround
* MPEG-4 ALS
* MPEG-4 SLS
* MPEG-4 DST
* MPEG-4 HVXC
* MPEG-4 CELP
* MPEG-D USAC
* MPEG-H 3D Audio

|

ITU-T|

* G.711
* A-law
* µ-law
* G.718
* G.719
* G.722
* G.722.1
* G.722.2
* G.723
* G.723.1
* G.726
* G.728
* G.729
* G.729.1

IETF|

* Opus
* iLBC
* Speex
* Vorbis

3GPP|

* AMR
* AMR-WB
* AMR-WB+
* EVRC
* EVRC-B
* EVS
* GSM-HR
* GSM-FR
* GSM-EFR

ETSI|

* AC-3
* AC-4
* DTS

Others|

* ACELP
* ALAC
* Asao
* ATRAC
* AVS
* CELT
* Codec 2
* DRA
* FLAC
* iSAC
* Monkey's Audio
* TTA
* True Audio
* MT9
* Musepack
* OptimFROG
* OSQ
* QCELP
* RCELP
* RealAudio
* RTAudio
* SD2
* SHN
* SILK
* Siren
* SMV
* SVOPC
* TwinVQ
* VMR-WB
* VSELP
* WavPack
* WMA
* MQA
* aptX
* aptX HD
* aptX Low Latency
* aptX Adaptive
* LDAC
* LHDC
* LLAC

Image
compression|

| IEC, ISO,
IETF, W3C,
ITU-T, JPEG|

* CCITT Group 4
* DCT
* HEIF
* HEVC
* JPEG
* JPEG XR
* JPEG XT
* TIFF/EP
* Arithmetic
* JBIG
* JBIG2
* JPEG-LS
* JPEG 2000
* LZ
* GIF
* PNG
* TIFF
* TIFF/IT

|

Others|

* APNG
* BPG
* DjVu
* EXR
* FLIF
* ICER
* MNG
* PGF
* QTVR
* WBMP
* WebP

Containers|

| ISO, IEC|

* MPEG-ES
* MPEG-PES
* MPEG-PS
* MPEG-TS
* ISO base media file format
* MPEG-4 Part 14 (MP4)
* Motion JPEG 2000
* MPEG-21 Part 9
* MPEG media transport

|

ITU-T|

* H.222.0
* T.802

IETF|

* RTP
* Ogg

SMPTE|

* GXF
* MXF

Others|

* 3GP and 3G2
* AMV
* ASF
* AIFF
* AVI
* AU
* BPG
* Bink
* Smacker
* BMP
* DivX Media Format
* EVO
* Flash Video
* IFF
* M2TS
* Matroska
* WebM
* QuickTime File Format
* RatDVD
* RealMedia
* RIFF
* WAV
* MOD and TOD
* VOB, IFO and BUP

Collaborations|

* NETVC
* MPEG LA
* HEVC Advance

Methods|

* Discrete cosine transform
* DCT
* MDCT
* Entropy
* Arithmetic
* Huffman
* Modified
* FFT
* LPC
* ACELP
* CELP
* LSP
* WLPC
* Lossless
* Lossy
* LZ
* DEFLATE
* LZW
* PCM
* A-law
* µ-law
* ADPCM
* DPCM
* Transform
* Wavelet
* Daubechies
* DWT
* Transform

Lists|

* Comparison of audio coding formats
* Comparison of video codecs
* List of codecs

See Compression methods for techniques and Compression software for codecs

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