File Extension M4A

File Extension M4A

M4A is commonly used for audio files created using MPEG-4 audio compression. M4A files plainly contain audio formatted with the MPEG-4 compression as oppose to the MP4 which may contain not contain any audio data. Files with M4A can be accessed by players installed on platforms Mac and Windows.

By using the MPEG-4 standards, publishers and developers strengthen the copyright protection of their products eliminating possibilities of copyrights violation. This is what most users will see on iTunes copyrighted products. M4A files are also defined as MPEG-4 Audio. For some players renaming an M4A to MP4 file will still be acceptable.

The M4A extension was popularized by Apple Corporation with the purpose of helping users identify a file's content by simply looking at the files extension. Both M4A and MP4 extensions fall under the MPEG-14 Part 14 which is assigned to be containers of MPEG-4 content basing from Part 12. An MP4 file may contain both audio and video data or just audio or video alone.

M4A files can be run using applications such as QuickTime Player and Apple iTunes from Apple, Roxio Toast, KSP Sound Player, WinAmp, Windows Media Player, NCH Swift Sound WavePad, and several other portable music player applications. However, popular players may not be able to render files created with M4A or MP4 extensions.

Similar file extensions

• File Extension MP4 - MPEG-4 Video
• File Extension MP3 - MPEG audio file