Editing Apple Lossless Audio Codec (section)

{{Short description|Lossless digital audio coding format}}
{{Infobox software
| name = Apple Lossless Audio Codec
| logo = 
| screenshot = 
| caption = 
| author = 
| developer = [[Apple Inc.|Apple]]
| released = {{start date and age|2004|04|28}}
| latest_release_version = {{Start date and age|2011|10|28}}
| latest_release_date = 
| latest preview version = 
| latest preview date = 
| operating_system = <!-- Do not forget your source -->
| genre = [[Audio codec]]
| license = [[Apache License]] 2.0
| website = {{URL|http://alac.macosforge.org}}
}}
{{Infobox file format
| name = 
| logo =
| screenshot =
| caption =
| extension = [[.m4a]] [[Core Audio Format|.caf]]
| mime =
| type code =
| uniform type =
| magic =
| owner = [[Apple Inc.]]
| type = [[Lossless compression|Lossless]] [[Audio file format|audio]]
| container for =
| contained by = [[MPEG-4 Part 14]]
| extended from =
| extended to =
| standard =
| open = Yes
| free = Yes
}}
The '''Apple Lossless Audio Codec''' ('''ALAC''', {{IPAc-en|ə|ˈ|l|æ|k}}), also known as '''Apple Lossless''', or '''Apple Lossless Encoder''' ('''ALE'''), is an [[audio coding format]], and its reference [[audio codec]] implementation, developed by [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] for [[lossless data compression]] of digital [[music]]. After initially keeping it [[proprietary format|proprietary]] from its inception in 2004, in late 2011 Apple made the codec available [[open-source software|open source]] and [[royalty-free]]. Traditionally, Apple has referred to the codec as ''Apple Lossless'', though more recently it has begun to use the abbreviated term ''ALAC'' when referring to the codec.<ref name="ALAC-term-1">{{cite web |date=May 8, 2017 |title=Subscribe to iTunes Match |url=https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146 |access-date=May 31, 2017 |publisher=Apple Inc |quote=If you have songs encoded in ALAC, WAV, or AIFF formats, we create an AAC 256&nbsp;Kbps version and upload it to iCloud so that it can be played on all of your other devices.}}</ref><ref name="ALAC-term-2">{{cite web |date=May 12, 2017 |title=Access your music collection on all of your devices with Apple Music |url=https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205919 |access-date=May 31, 2017 |publisher=Apple Inc |quote=We create AAC 256Kbps versions of songs that are encoded in ALAC, WAV, or AIFF formats and add the AAC version to iCloud Music Library.}}</ref>

ALAC data is frequently stored within an [[MPEG-4 Part 14|MP4]] [[Container format (digital)|container]] with the [[filename extension]] ''[[.m4a]]''. This extension is also used by Apple for [[Advanced Audio Coding|AAC]] (which is a [[Lossy compression|lossy]] format) in an MP4 container (same container, different audio encoding). ALAC can also be used by the [[Core Audio Format|.CAF]] file type container, though this is much less common.