AIFF

Short for Audio Interchange File Format, a common format for storing and transmitting sampled sound. The format was developed by Apple Computer and is the standard audio format for Macintosh computers. It is also used by Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI).

AIFF files generally end with a .AIF or .IEF extension.

The AIFF format does not support data compression so AIFF files tend to be large. However, there is another format called AIFF-Compressed (AIFF-C or AIFC) that supports compression ratios as high as 6:1.