.Dd January 16, 2026
.Dt WVUNPACK 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm wvunpack
.Nd decode wavpack encoded files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm wvunpack
.Op Fl options
.Op Fl o Ar output
.Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm wvunpack
decodes WavPack files back to their original uncompressed form.
Unless overridden with the
.Fl o
switch, the output filename will be the source filename
with the original file extension replacing WavPack's
.Dq .wv
extension.
It is also possible to output raw audio without headers using the
.Fl -raw
option.
Multiple WavPack input files may be specified
resulting in multiple output files, and in that case
.Fl o
may be used to specify an alternate target directory.
A filename of
.Dq -
specifies
.Pa stdin
or
.Pa stdout .
It is also possible to export to one of the alternate file formats below,
but in that case the information in the original headers and trailers
will be lost, even if the alternate format is the same as the source format.
WavPack files are generally created with the
.Nm wavpack
program.
.Pp
If multiple input files are specified with piped output
.Pf ( Dq -o - ) ,
then the output from all the files is concatenated.
This can be utilized as an easy way to concatenate WavPack files
(assuming the output is subsequently piped into
.Nm wavpack ) ,
but only makes sense with raw output
.Pf ( Fl -raw )
to avoid headers being interleaved with the audio data.
.Pp
On multicore machines
.Nm wvunpack
will attempt to use multiple threads to speed up the operation,
often by 3x or more.
To force single-threaded operation use the
.Fl -no-threads
option, or use the
.Fl -threads
option to fine-tune the number of threads utilized.
.Ss OUTPUT FORMATS
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Microsoft RIFF
.Pq Dq .wav ,
force with
.Fl -wav ,
creates RF64 if > 4 GB
.It
Sony Wave64
.Pq Dq .w64 ,
force with
.Fl -w64
.It
Apple AIFF
.Pq Dq .aif ,
force with
.Fl -aif
or
.Fl -aif-le
.It
Apple Core Audio
.Pq Dq .caf ,
force with
.Fl -caf-be
or
.Fl -caf-le
.It
Raw PCM or DSD
.Pq Dq .raw ,
force with
.Fl r
or
.Fl -raw
.It
Philips DSDIFF
.Pq Dq .dff ,
force with
.Fl -dsdiff
or
.Fl -dff
.It
Sony DSD Stream
.Pq Dq .dsf ,
force with
.Fl -dsf
.El
.Ss OPTIONS
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl -aif , Fl -aif-le
force output to Apple AIFF (or AIFF-C/sowt), extension
.Dq .aif
.It Fl b
blindly decode all stream blocks and ignore length info
.It Fl c
do not decode audio but instead just extract cuesheet stored in APEv2 tag to
.Pa stdout
(equivalent to
.Fl x
.Dq cuesheet )
.It Fl cc
extract cuesheet stored in APEv2 tag to
.Pa source-name.cue
file in same directory as decoded audio file
(equivalent to
.Fl xx
.Dq cuesheet=%a.cue )
.It Fl -caf-be , Fl -caf-le
force output to big-endian or little-endian Core Audio, extension
.Dq .caf
.It Fl d
delete source file if successful;
.Sy use with caution!
.It Fl -dff , Fl -dsdiff
force output to Philips DSDIFF, DSD audio source only, extension
.Dq .dff
.It Fl -dsf
force output to Sony DSF, DSD audio source only, extension
.Dq .dsf
.It Fl f
do not decode audio but simply display summary information
about WavPack file to
.Pa stdout
in a machine-parsable format (see
.Pa doc/wavpack_doc.html
or
.Pa cli/wvunpack.c
for details)
.It Fl -help
display extended help
.It Fl i
ignore .wvc file (forces hybrid lossy decompression)
.It Fl m
calculate and display MD5 signature; verify if lossless
.It Fl n
no audio decoding (use with
.Fl xx
to extract tags only)
.It Fl -no-overwrite
Never overwrite, nor ask to overwrite, an existing file.
This is handy for resuming a cancelled batch operation
and obviously cannot be mixed with the
.Fl y
option.
.It Fl -normalize-floats
normalize float audio to +/-1.0 if it isn't normalized already
(rarely the case, but alters audio and fails MD5)
.It Fl -no-threads
force single-threaded operation, equivalent to
.Fl -threads=1
.It Fl -no-utf8-convert
leave extracted text tags in UTF-8 encoding during extraction or display
.It Fl o Ar OUTFILE
specify output filename (only if single source file)
or target directory (must already exist)
.It Fl q
quiet (keep console output to a minimum)
.It Fl r , Fl -raw
force raw PCM or DSD audio decode by skipping headers & trailers, results in
.Pa source-name.raw
.It Fl -raw-pcm
similar to
.Fl r
and
.Fl -raw
above except that DSD audio will be converted to 24-bit PCM (8x decimation)
.It Fl s
do not decode audio but simply display summary information
about WavPack file to
.Pa stdout
.It Fl ss
do not decode audio but simply display summary and tag information
about WavPack file to
.Pa stdout
.It Fl -skip=[-][ Ns Ar sample Ns | Ns Ar hh : Ns Ar mm : Ns Ar ss.ss ]
start decoding at specified sample or time index, specifying a
.Sq -
causes sample/time to be relative to EOF
.It Fl t
copy input file's time stamp to output file(s)
.It Fl -threads= Ns Ar n
Enable (or disable) multithreaded operation with
.Ar n=1
(no threading) to
.Ar n=12
(max threads).
Significantly improves performance of all modes, including verify.
Omitting the parameter will select an optimum number of threads.
.It Fl -until=[+|-][ Ns Ar sample Ns | Ns Ar hh : Ns Ar mm : Ns Ar ss.ss ]
stop decoding at specified sample or time index, specifying a
.Sq +
causes sample/time to be relative to
.Fl -skip
point,
specifying a
.Sq -
causes sample/time to be relative to EOF
.It Fl v
verify source data only (no output file created)
.It Fl vv
quick verify (no output, version 5+ files only)
.It Fl -version
write program version to
.Pa stdout
.It Fl w , Fl -wav
force output to Microsoft RIFF/RF64, extension
.Dq .wav
.It Fl -w64
force output to Sony Wave64, extension
.Dq .w64
.It Fl x Do Ar Field Dc
do not decode audio but instead just extract the specified tag field to
.Pa stdout
.It Fl xx Do Ar Field Ns [= Ns Ar file ] Dc
extract the specified tag field into a named file in the same directory
as the decoded audio file; optional filename specification may contain
.Sq %a
which is replaced with the audio file base name,
.Sq %t
replaced with the tag field name (note: comes from data for binary tags) and
.Sq %e
replaced with the extension from the binary tag source file (or
.Dq txt
for text tag).
.It Fl y
yes to overwrite warning;
.Sy use with caution!
.It Fl z[ Ns Ar n ]
don't set (n = 0 or omitted) or set (n = 1) console title
to indicate progress (leaves "WvUnpack Completed")
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr wavpack 1 ,
.Xr wvgain 1 ,
.Xr wvtag 1 ,
.Lk www.wavpack.com
.Sh AUTHORS
.An David Bryant Aq Mt david@wavpack.com
.An Sebastian Dröge Aq Mt slomo@debian.org
.An Jan Starý Aq Mt hans@stare.cz
