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M4A is one of Apple's many multimedia formats and is an improved version of MP3. There are lots of apps that support playback of M4A files, including QuickTime. Here we have gathered top solutions not only for Mac but also for Windows and Android. However, avid listeners may go for Elmedia as the best M4A player Mac app as it offers enhanced features for both music and video playback.
Elmedia Player opens up our list of M4A player Mac solutions. Despite being a versatile video player, Elmedia is also considered one of the best music players for Mac. The player offers enhanced functionality for both video and audio playback that can certainly be evaluated by savvy users. However, its simplicity of use makes Elmedia also attractive for beginners.
The player is packed with customizable features and has support for almost any popular file format. Here you can find support for M4A, MP4, MKV, FLAC, and WMV. Rather than downloading separate players optimized for every file format, you can download an all-in-one solution and enjoy your audio content despite the format.
Compared to standard M4A player options like QuickTime or Apple Music, Elmedia Player can play M4A files with no quality loss. Even more, this audio player delivers superior performance for lossless audio formats. The app allows creating and editing playlists according to your own unique specifications. Another great feature worth mentioning is the 10-Band Equalizer, which comes with ten comprehensive presets.
Mac App Store Rating: 4.7
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Supported audio formats: MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, WMA, MKA, AIFF, APE, and others.
Supported OS: macOS (including Ventura)
Price: free to use, PRO upgrade costs $19.99
To play M4A on Mac with the help of Elmedia Player, you need to proceed with these simple steps:
Choose the most convenient way of adding M4A files to Elmedia from the following:
Colibri is a straightforward M4A player that uses only a small amount of processing power and offers a clean and intuitive user interface. Due to the BASS technology, this native lossless audio player provides a unique listening experience making it a perfect choice for avid music fans. Additionally, users will also appreciate a wide list of supported file formats except for M4A.
Among its advantages, it is worth mentioning its gapless listening technology meaning that you won’t experience any pauses or lags when switching between playing your tunes as the next song will be prepared in the background.
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Supported audio formats: MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, WMA, MKA, AIFF, APE, and others.
Supported OS: macOS
Price: $9.99
The VOX Player can handle different formats, including M4A, MP3, FLAC, AAC, Musepack, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, etc, is friendly with SoundCloud and Last.fm, and looks cool. This M4A player offers a rather convenient set of features. Fans of hotkeys will appreciate that all the manipulations can be done with the help of a keyboard. The track being played is highlighted in the playlist. In the system menu, you can call the playlist, and manage the playback of songs.
When the program window is inactive, VOX displays notifications about the beginning of playing a new track. When playing, you can change the display of the playback time (how much time remains to the end of the actual playback time of the song). There is paid Internet radio with more than 3,000 stations ($5 to unlock) and a paid cloud music storage service LOOP that can be a salvation for music collectors.
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Supported audio formats: AAC, M4A, M4B, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MP+, MPC, MPP, OGA, OGG, OPUS, RA, RM, WMA, ALAC, APE, DFF, DSF, FLAC, TTA, WMA Lossless, WV, etc.
Supported OS: iOS, macOS, Windows
Price: free, Premium subscription $4.99 / month
Despite being mostly used for video playback, AnyMP4 Blu-ray Player can also be used as an M4A player Mac solution. The style of this media player is very smooth and pleasant, and users should be able to easily find the buttons and tools they need. The app offers a high-quality video and audio experience without overwhelming the user with many features.
The AnyMP4 Blu-ray Player is notable for its high speed and quality. It has a number of standard features: playing graphics, tagging and bookmarking, effects and room tuning, equalizer, and more.
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Supported audio formats: AAC, M4A, M4B, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MP+, MPC, MPP, OGA, OGG, OPUS, RA, RM, WMA, ALAC, APE, DFF, DSF, FLAC, TTA, WMA Lossless, WV, etc.
Supported OS: iOS, macOS, Windows
Price: free, Premium subscription $4.99 / month
5KPlayer has entered the category of perfect media players, supporting all media file formats from M4A, MKV, M2TS, AVI, WMV, FLV to MP3, AAC, and WMA as well as for streaming video and audio. The player features a minimalistic interface and the ability to correctly play high-resolution files. Audiophiles will appreciate the support of multichannel RStereo, Dolby, and DTS.
In addition to supporting video and audio playback, the app can also receive satellite radio to help you listen to the radio directly from the app. You can choose to listen to some radio stations that are already included in this M4A player, or you can insert your own radio URL and listen to it.
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Supported audio formats: MP3, AAC, AC3, AMR, M4P, OGG, WV, and way more.
Supported OS: macOS, Windows
Price: free
MusicBee is a great music management and playback program for Windows. It offers such a huge set of features that sometimes it feels like you'll never know them all because there are so many. In addition to playing popular music formats, it supports automatic tagging, music management, CD ripping, automatic playlists, music conversion, support for audiobooks and podcasts, and much more.
MusicBee is available as a portable version or as an extension. This is the best M4A player for Windows and probably the best all-in-one program you can get for free.
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Supported audio formats: MP3, AAC, M4A, MPC, OGG, FLAC, ALAC, APE, Opus, TAK, WavPack, WMA, WAV, MIDI, MOD, UMX, XM.
Supported OS: Windows
Price: free
VLC on Android provides the same features as on PC - it's a completely free application that can play almost any modern multimedia content format like M4A, MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, etc. There are flexible settings for scanning folders for videos or music, streaming to TV, a dark theme, and lots of playback options.
This M4A player for Android features the ability to scan and find all M4A files on your device and what is even more stunning, your SD card.
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Supported audio formats: MP4, MPEG Layer 1/2, MP3, AAC, Vorbis Yes, AC3, A/52, E-AC-3, MLP/TrueHD, DTS, WMA, FLAC, ALAC, Wavpack, MIDI, ADPCM, QCELP, DV Audio, QDM2/QDMC (QuickTime), MACE.
Supported OS: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android
Price: open-source, donation-based service
Apple Music is an excellent M4A player Android alternative that comes with many handy features. The service turns your phone into a player with a large library of music of all kinds and genres. Apple claims to have thirty million songs on iTunes, but in practice, when you search for music, it turns out that some albums are only available for purchase.
The extensive library is not the only possibility of the service: it also offers to listen to music without downloading songs to your device, make playlists according to your tastes, and way more.
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Supported audio formats: M4A, MP3, AIFF, AAC, and WAV.
Supported OS: iOS, macOS, Android
Price: free, in-app purchase is available
Another variant to play M4A on Mac is by using online converters Despite requiring constant access to the Internet, they guarantee quick and easy conversion of M4A to MP3.
Zamzar is a good free file converter that can handle many file formats. It is really easy to use and allows you to convert files online without having to download any software. The only downside of this converter is that it’s a bit slower than most other online file converters, however, it does a decent job and is a reliable solution.
In order to perform M4A to MP3 conversion, you need to follow these simple steps below:
If you do not want to bother installing special programs on your computer, then Convertio is to help you. This online resource is conditionally free as the maximum set of functions is paid but the simpler things, such as converting audio or video, as well as images is free. However, there is a limit per day.
Converting M4A to MP3 is quite simple and below you will find the detailed guide:
M4A files are an improved version of MP3 files. This improvement is due to the fact that, unlike MP3 files, such files can be obtained by lossless compression. The M4A format was first introduced by Apple. This type of format is also known as Apple Lossless Encoder (ALE).
Advantages: M4A files are compressed, but the process occurs without loss of quality. Another advantage of the M4A format is the absence of digital rights protection (DRM), which gives users the freedom to edit and download them.
Disadvantages: M4A files are recognized by Apple Music (formerly known as iTunes), iPods, and other Apple devices. Unfortunately, their poor compatibility with other devices makes M4A audio tracks not very usable compared to MP3 files.
Despite the fact that this format is primarily designed for devices of the Apple ecosystem, it can also be found on Windows. Being essentially music recorded in a MPEG-4 container, this audio file opens perfectly in a variety of multimedia players. In the article above, we have overviewed several M4A player solutions suitable for this purpose.
In this article, we have presented several ways how to open M4A files on different operating systems. Files in the relatively new M4A format can be opened with a variety of external media players. Each M4A video player has its own advantages and disadvantages, as well as a different set of features.
So before choosing your perfect one, we highly recommend reading more about them all. If you are searching for a more universal M4A files player, we recommend you take a closer look at Elmedia Player. The app can not only seamlessly handle M4A files but also has support for dozens of other formats and offers enhanced video and audio playback capabilities.
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