Convert HEVC to CAF — Free Online Tool
Extract and convert the audio track from an HEVC/H.265 video file into a CAF (Core Audio Format) file encoded with 16-bit PCM — Apple's native uncompressed audio container. Ideal for developers and audio professionals working in the Apple ecosystem who need lossless-quality audio pulled directly from high-efficiency video sources.
to
FFmpeg Command
Copy this command to run the same conversion locally with FFmpeg on your desktop. Download FFmpeg
Drop your HEVC file here
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Settings
Note: Browser-based encoding uses approximate quality targets. For precise CRF compression, copy the FFmpeg command above and run it on your desktop.
Estimated output:
Conversion Complete!
DownloadHow It Works
HEVC (.hevc) files typically contain only a raw H.265 video stream with no audio track, or in some cases carry an audio stream alongside the compressed video. During this conversion, FFmpeg discards the video stream entirely and extracts only the audio, re-encoding it as 16-bit signed little-endian PCM (pcm_s16le) inside a CAF container. PCM is uncompressed, so no perceptual audio quality is lost in the encoding step — the output fidelity is limited only by whatever audio was present in the source. The CAF container itself is Apple's successor to AIFF and WAV, capable of handling large file sizes beyond the 4GB WAV limit and natively supported by macOS and iOS frameworks such as Core Audio and AVFoundation.
What Each Flag Does
| Flag | What it does |
|---|---|
ffmpeg
|
Invokes the FFmpeg media processing tool. In this browser-based tool, FFmpeg runs as a WebAssembly module (FFmpeg.wasm) — no files leave your device. The same command can be run identically on a desktop FFmpeg installation. |
-i input.hevc
|
Specifies the input file — a raw HEVC/H.265 bitstream or container file. FFmpeg will probe this file to detect any available audio streams; if none are found, the conversion cannot proceed. |
-c:a pcm_s16le
|
Sets the audio codec to 16-bit signed little-endian PCM, an uncompressed format that introduces no quality loss. This is the standard PCM encoding compatible with Apple's Core Audio and the CAF container, and mirrors the sample format used in CD audio and most professional uncompressed audio workflows. |
-b:a 128k
|
Specifies a target audio bitrate of 128 kbps. For PCM audio this flag has no practical effect — uncompressed audio bitrate is fixed by sample rate and bit depth — but it is included for consistency with the tool's quality controls and can be ignored or removed without changing the output. |
output.caf
|
Defines the output filename and tells FFmpeg to write a CAF (Core Audio Format) container. FFmpeg infers the container format from the .caf extension, wrapping the PCM audio stream in Apple's native audio container, which supports large files and is natively readable by macOS and iOS Core Audio frameworks. |
Common Use Cases
- Extracting a clean, uncompressed audio track from an HEVC-encoded video recorded on a drone or cinema camera for further processing in Logic Pro or GarageBand
- Preparing audio assets from H.265 source footage for use in an iOS or macOS app, where CAF is the preferred native format for Core Audio APIs
- Archiving the audio component of HEVC broadcast or streaming captures in a lossless PCM format before the video is discarded or transcoded
- Converting HEVC video audio to CAF/PCM as an intermediate step before mastering or applying professional audio effects in a DAW that prefers uncompressed Apple-native formats
- Pulling dialogue or narration audio out of H.265 screen recordings or lecture captures for transcription, captioning, or podcast editing workflows on macOS
- Delivering uncompressed audio stems derived from HEVC source material to an Apple Silicon-based post-production pipeline without introducing additional codec dependencies
Frequently Asked Questions
No — provided the source HEVC file contains an audio track, the output is 16-bit PCM, which is an uncompressed format. There is no perceptual encoding applied to the audio during this conversion, so what you hear in the CAF file is a faithful representation of the audio that was in the original video. The only ceiling on quality is the bit depth and sample rate of the source audio itself.
CAF offers several advantages over WAV and AIFF for Apple-platform workflows: it removes the 4GB file size ceiling that limits WAV files (critical for long high-sample-rate recordings), it is natively understood by Core Audio on macOS and iOS without any third-party libraries, and it supports a wide range of codecs beyond PCM. If your destination is an Apple DAW, development environment, or media pipeline, CAF is often the most frictionless choice.
Raw .hevc files — particularly those containing only a demuxed H.265 bitstream — frequently have no embedded audio at all. In that case FFmpeg will produce a CAF file with no audio content or report an error that no audio stream was found. You can verify whether your file has an audio track by running 'ffprobe input.hevc' before attempting the conversion. If there is no audio, this conversion is not applicable.
Replace '-c:a pcm_s16le' with your desired codec. For AAC use '-c:a aac', and for lossless FLAC use '-c:a flac'. The CAF container supports all of these natively. If you switch to a lossy codec like AAC, the '-b:a 128k' bitrate flag becomes meaningful for controlling quality; for lossless codecs like FLAC or PCM, the bitrate flag has no effect and can be omitted.
Yes. In a Unix shell (macOS Terminal or Linux) you can loop over files with: 'for f in *.hevc; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:a pcm_s16le "${f%.hevc}.caf"; done'. On Windows Command Prompt, use a for loop: 'for %f in (*.hevc) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -c:a pcm_s16le "%~nf.caf"'. This processes each HEVC file in the current directory and produces a matching CAF file.
CAF is primarily an Apple-ecosystem format. Native support on Windows and Android is limited — most standard media players will not open CAF files without additional plugins. If you need the uncompressed audio to play cross-platform, consider using WAV (with pcm_s16le) or FLAC instead. This conversion is best suited for workflows that stay within macOS, iOS, or Apple development toolchains.
Technical Notes
The pcm_s16le codec used here writes 16-bit signed integers in little-endian byte order, the same sample format used by standard CD audio and the default PCM encoding in WAV files. CAF additionally supports 24-bit (pcm_s24le) and 32-bit (pcm_s32le and pcm_f32le) PCM, which may be preferable if the source audio was recorded at higher bit depth. The '-b:a 128k' flag in the command is effectively inert for PCM, since uncompressed audio bitrate is determined by sample rate and bit depth rather than a compression target — it can safely be omitted. HEVC raw bitstream files (.hevc) carry no container-level metadata, so no title, artist, or chapter information will survive to the CAF output. CAF does support metadata chunks (including markers and regions), but FFmpeg does not populate these automatically during this conversion. Because this tool runs via FFmpeg.wasm in-browser, processing large or high-sample-rate audio will be slower than a native desktop FFmpeg build; files over 1GB should be processed using the displayed FFmpeg command locally.