File Formats
Every kind of file, explained: what it is, the software that opens it and how its bytes are laid out. Search by extension, name or program, or drop any file on any page of this site to look inside it.
Categories
Audio
Recordings, compressed music, MIDI and tracker modules, music projects, instruments and playlists.
66 formatsVideo
Containers, raw video streams, streaming manifests, subtitles and editing projects.
37 formatsImage
Photos and bitmaps, vector drawings, camera raw, layered projects, icons and retro formats.
67 formats3D & CAD
Meshes, scenes, modelling projects, engineering drawings, 3D printing and point clouds.
54 formatsDocument
Printable pages, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, ebooks, text and fonts.
63 formatsData
Structured text, binary serialisation, databases, science and maps, AI models, compression and archives.
90 formatsCode
Source code, bytecode, programs and libraries, object files, firmware, shaders and packages.
136 formatsSystem
Disk and floppy images, keys and certificates, network captures, shortcuts, settings and logs.
41 formatsViewers
Fully supported: 1 format · Partially supported: 108 formats
Drop one on any page and the explorer takes it apart and shows what it holds: the picture, the sound, the notes, the rows or the text.
Latest additions
| Format | Name | About | Viewer |
|---|---|---|---|
.RB | Ruby source code | Ruby programs and libraries as plain text, UTF-8 by default. | partial |
.HS | Haskell source code | Haskell modules as text, with a literate form in .lhs files. | partial |
.MOD | Go module file | A Go module's path, Go version and dependencies, as line-oriented UTF-8 text. | partial |
.ZIG | Zig source code | Zig programs as UTF-8 text, each file an implicit struct. | partial |
.PYC | Compiled Python bytecode | Python’s cache of a compiled module: a version header and a code object. | partial |
.A | Static library archive | Unix static libraries: object files in an ar archive with a symbol index. | partial |
.OGG | Ogg Vorbis audio | Open lossy audio: Vorbis packets carried in a sequence of Ogg pages. | partial |
.OPUS | Opus audio in Ogg | Open low-latency codec for speech and music, in Ogg pages. | partial |
.YAML | YAML Ain’t Markup Language | Indented text for configuration: maps, lists and values. | partial |
.MP3 | MPEG-1 Audio Layer III | The classic compressed music format: a run of frames, often with ID3 tags. | partial |
.LIB | Windows and OMF libraries | Windows COFF archives, import libraries and OMF libraries for linkers. | partial |
.OBJ | Object files (OMF and COFF) | Two object file formats share .obj on DOS and Windows: OMF and COFF. | partial |
.OBJ | Wavefront OBJ | A plain text mesh of vertices, normals and faces, read by almost every 3D program. | partial |
.FLAC | Free Lossless Audio Codec | Open lossless compression: metadata blocks, then frames of predicted samples. | partial |
.SQL | SQL database dump | A database backup as SQL text: CREATE TABLE, then INSERT for every row. | partial |
.MANIFEST.JSON | Browser extension manifest | The JSON manifest of a browser extension: its name, permissions and scripts. | partial |
.XPI | Firefox add-on package | Firefox add-ons: a ZIP of the extension’s files, signed in META-INF. | partial |
.CRX | Chrome extension package | Chrome extensions: a signed header, then a ZIP of the extension’s files. | partial |
.VSCODE | VS Code project settings | A VS Code project's settings, debug configurations, tasks and recommended extensions. | partial |
.ICNS | Apple Icon Image | macOS application icons, one picture in many sizes, mostly as PNG. | partial |
Reference
Fully supported: 14 formats · Partially supported: 161 formats
A complete reference has a page for each part of the file, for every version.
Latest additions
| Format | Name | About | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
.AIFF | Audio Interchange File Format | Two formats share the name: plain AIFF, and AIFF-C with a compression type. | partial |
.PCM | Raw PCM audio | Bare audio samples with no header: the format must be known in advance. | partial |
.CAF | Core Audio Format | Apple’s audio file with 64-bit chunks, for PCM or any Core Audio format. | partial |
.VOC | Creative Voice File | Sound Blaster audio from the DOS era: a header, then typed blocks of samples. | partial |
.DDS | DirectDraw Surface | DirectX textures, usually block-compressed, with mipmaps and cube maps. | partial |
.EXR | OpenEXR image | Floating point HDR images with many channels, for film and rendering. | partial |
.HDR | Radiance HDR image | High dynamic range images with a shared exponent per pixel, used for lighting. | partial |
.PFM | Portable Float Map | Uncompressed 32-bit float images after a three-line text header. | partial |
.RB | Ruby source code | Ruby programs and libraries as plain text, UTF-8 by default. | partial |
.W64 | Sony Wave64 | WAV-like audio past 4 GB: 16-byte GUID chunk IDs and 64-bit sizes. | partial |
.HS | Haskell source code | Haskell modules as text, with a literate form in .lhs files. | partial |
.MOD | Go module file | A Go module's path, Go version and dependencies, as line-oriented UTF-8 text. | partial |
.ZIG | Zig source code | Zig programs as UTF-8 text, each file an implicit struct. | partial |
.EMF | Enhanced Metafile | A recording of 32-bit Windows drawing calls, used in Office and on the clipboard. | partial |
.ASS | Advanced SubStation Alpha subtitles | Styled subtitles in INI-like sections: styles, then timed dialogue lines. | partial |
.AAC | Advanced Audio Coding | MP3’s successor: ADTS frames in .aac, or MPEG-4 boxes in .m4a. | partial |
.AC3 | Dolby Digital audio | Dolby Digital surround sound: sync frames of six 256-sample audio blocks. | partial |
.AMR | Adaptive Multi-Rate speech | Mobile phone speech: a #!AMR line, then 20 ms frames. | partial |
.AU | Sun/NeXT audio | Unix audio: a 24-byte big-endian header, then the samples, often µ-law. | partial |
.MP2 | MPEG-1 Audio Layer II | Broadcast MPEG audio for DAB, DVB and Video CD: frames like MP3’s. | partial |
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