Album artwork not showing on .m4a files

[PuppetMaster000]

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

iPhone 11 Pro Max

Operating System

iOS 14.8

My Question or Issue

I managed to sync my local files from my PC to my phone but I noticed that .m4a files are missing their artwork. It shows normally on the PC and all other artwork works fine on the phone so this issue should be iOS only. Any fix for this?

[Alex]

Hey there @PuppetMaster000,

Thanks for the post.

The iTunes lossless format .m4a is not officially supported as a Local file format. Even though those files might work on some systems we can't guarantee that every phone and computer would work with them. The same goes for supporting metadata, like cover images.

You can learn more about supported formats here.

Hope this clears things up. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[PuppetMaster000]

Ah shame, thought since it works fine on the PC it would be one of those overlooked things. Guess it was a matter of just lucky it works on my PC. Any idea what I can do in this case? From what I understand m4a is one of the highest quality formats, do I convert the files to something else and if so which one?

[Kiril]

Hey there @PuppetMaster000,

Thanks for your response.

You can see the currently supported formats in the article that @Alex provided earlier. Open the dropdown menus there to see answers to the frequently asked questions regarding the topic. Also you can find more info about how Local files work for the different platforms here.

Hope this clears things up. If you have any questions or need anything else, the Community is here for you.