Transcribe a long ALAC file lossless in, text out.
A six-hour ALAC file is 360 minutes, which the $6 pack (500 minutes) covers with 140 left, and it is transcribed in about twelve minutes. Apple Lossless usually sits near half the size of WAV, so a long recording tends to fit the 5 GB and 10-hour limits, and the first 20 minutes are free.
Apple Lossless
Lossless audio, sized for long recordings.
Lossless, inside an .m4a
ALAC files usually carry the .m4a extension, the same one AAC uses, so the name alone does not tell you which you have. The Music app shows the kind of file, and size is a giveaway too: lossless audio is several times larger per hour than AAC at a normal bitrate.
About half of WAV
CD-quality stereo WAV uses about 635 MB an hour, and ALAC typically trims that to somewhere around 300 to 400 MB. Speech with pauses can compress further. Ten hours therefore lands near 3 to 4 GB, under the 5 GB limit but over the 2 GB line for a first upload.
Above 2 GB, a pack first
A file over 2 GB starts once a pack is on the account, so a long lossless recording is often the moment to buy one. Big files continue on the upload page, and if the upload refuses the file, convert it to MP3 first.
Twelve minutes for six hours
Speed follows the running time at about 2 minutes per audio hour, and lossless quality does not slow it down. The 4.94-hour public run on the proof page took 372 seconds.
Lossless, long
What happens to hours of ALAC in other places.
✗ Size caps meet lossless
Lossless files are big enough to trip small caps, and the usual advice is to throw away the quality you chose on purpose.
- Told to convert to a lossy format first
- Cut into hour-long pieces to fit
- An upload that times out on a large file
- Confusion over which .m4a is which
- One transcript per fragment
- Hours of uploading for nothing
✓ Kept whole
A lossless file within the limits goes up as recorded, and the transcript tracks every minute of it.
- ALAC up to 10 hours or 5 GB
- No need to give up quality
- Above 2 GB once a pack is on
- About 2 minutes per audio hour
- A brief, chapters and a chat
- TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON
Sample output
Five hours into an archive digitisation.
Illustrative only, not a real tape. Old interviews digitised to Apple Lossless keep their original running order in the transcript.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Long Apple Lossless files, answered.
How long does a six-hour ALAC file take?
About twelve minutes once it has uploaded. Sending a file of 2 GB or more is usually the slower half of the wait.
What does six hours of Apple Lossless cost?
Six hours is 360 minutes, inside the $6 pack (500 minutes) with 140 left. A collection of thirty hours of lossless tapes is 1,800 minutes and fits the $12 pack (2,000 minutes) with 200 left.
Do I need to convert ALAC before uploading?
Usually not, because it travels as .m4a, which browsers normally treat as audio. If the upload refuses the file, convert it to MP3 first; a 128 kbps copy of six hours is about 345 MB.
What about a lossless file over 5 GB or 10 hours?
Split it at a natural break into two files, or upload a compressed copy if only the size is the problem. Each part gets its own transcript, timed from zero.
Does lossless give a better transcript than AAC?
Not noticeably for speech. Both carry the words clearly, and the recording conditions matter far more than the codec. Keep the lossless master for the archive and send whichever copy is easier to upload.
Which languages and exports, and is it private?
99 languages are recognised without a setting, and the exports are TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Apple Lossless recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
Other lossless and Apple formats.
Six hours, lossless. Text in about twelve minutes.
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