Extract text from Android application resources (ARSC)
To convert ARSC resources to another format, you need Android Studio or other Developer software.
To convert other file formats to the "Compiled Android Resource File" file type, you need software like Android Studio or a similar tool.
The .arsc file format is a compiled resource index used within Android application packages (APK files). It acts as a master database lookup table, allowing the Android operating system to quickly map resource IDs from the app's code to their corresponding localized text strings, styles, layout dimensions, and external asset paths. Typically named resources.arsc, this file is natively generated by the Android Asset Packaging Tool (AAPT) during an app's build process.
The main disadvantage of an .arsc file is that it is a compiled binary format. You cannot open or edit it directly in a standard text editor. If you try, you will encounter a screen full of garbled, unreadable characters, and editing even a single byte will often corrupt the file and crash the parent application. This makes tasks like app modding, reverse engineering, or localizing interface text extremely difficult for non-developers. To safely read or edit the data, users are forced to rely on complex reverse-engineering frameworks like Apktool or use the APK Analyzer built into Android Studio.
Users commonly need to convert .arsc files to human-readable XML, JSON, or TXT formats to view, translate, or modify the underlying application strings. When decompiled into XML, you lose the optimized binary structure, but gain full editing capabilities before recompiling. Standard online document converters fail entirely to process these files because .arsc is a highly specialized developer database, not a standard text document.
This file format is notoriously difficult to open or convert because it is a closed, compiled format that depends on the Android build toolchain. Only specialized decompilers can properly read and extract the embedded data into useful XML trees. If our analysis detects an underlying or embedded format we support, viewing or basic text extraction may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your ARSC file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted DEX, RSA, PROPERTIES, SO, SF, XML, APK, TXT, BIN, UNITY_BUILTIN_EXTRA, MF, UNITY DEFAULT RESOURCES and ZIP files.
If you want to convert ARSC file to JS, TS, PY, JAVA, CPP, C, CS, PHP, RB, GO, RS or SWIFT, you can use Android Studio or similar software from the "Android App Resource Table" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert SH, PY, KT, PS1, SWIFT, LUA, PL, JAVA, SCALA, JS, VBS or TS files to ARSC, try Android Studio or another comparable tool in the "Android App Resource Table" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our ARSC converter.