What is an ARJ file?

In this article, we’ll explain what the ARJ archive format is, how to open it, and how to change it to another archive format.

What is an ARJ file?

A file with the extension “ARJ” has been compressed using the ARJ format. Like most compressed file types, they are used to archive files and folders by putting them all into one easy-to-manage file.

How to get into an ARJ file

ARJ files can be opened with any well-known program that can compress or uncompress files. The article says to use 7-Zip or PeaZip, but you can also use the official ARJ program or a number of other free compression and decompression tools.

No matter which program you choose, you can easily decompress (extract) the contents of an ARJ file with any of these, and some of them can even make the file themselves.

You can also open the file with Notepad or another text editor. Many files only have text, which means that any text editor can show the file’s contents correctly, no matter what the file extension is. This is not true for these kinds of compressed files. Your ARJ file could be in a completely different format, which is a lot to keep track of.

How to change the ARJ format

If you want to convert an ARJ file to another archive format, the best way to do so is to extract all of the file’s content and then use a file compressor from the list above to compress it into the new format.

In other words, instead of looking for an ARJ to ZIP or RAR converter (or whatever format you want), it would be easier and probably faster to decompress the file to separate all the data. Then, just make a new compressed file and choose the format you want, such as ZIP, RAR, 7Z, etc.

There are online ARJ file converters, but they won’t be very helpful if your file is really big because you have to upload it online first. Try Convertio if you have a small file. When you upload the file to that website, you will be given the choice of converting it to 7Z, RAR, TAR, GZ/TGZ, BZ2, or ZIP.

Can’t open the file still?

If you can’t open a file with any of the above ARJ tools, it probably isn’t in this format. You might have thought your file was an ARJ archive because the file extension looks the same but is different by only a letter or two.

For example, the first two letters of the file extension for ARF and ARD files are the same. However, these two formats are not related, so the mentioned programs will not be able to open them.