The .AIFC file format is used on computers and other electronic audio devices. The format is compressed and lossless (no reduction in quality) and because of this, is popular with professional audio/video applications - in particular those on the Apple Macintosh operating system.

The .AIF audio format produces files much larger than other formats, so is not suited for transferring across the internet.

The uncompressed equivalent of this format uses the .AIFF (or the older .AIF) file extension.

The actual format was based on the Amiga's IFF format, and was co-developed by Apple.