Extract text from ARK project files (BEACON)
To convert BEACON project files to another format, you need Beacon Omni or other Game software.
To convert other file formats to the "ARK Configuration File" file type, you need software like Beacon Omni or a similar tool.
The .beacon file is an ARK server configuration file used by the Beacon Omni server manager for the game ARK: Survival Evolved. These files store customized settings for server rules, primarily focusing on complex custom loot drops, supply crate contents, and creature spawn variables.
A major disadvantage of the .beacon format is its proprietary appearance. Standard ARK configurations rely on plain text INI files, but .beacon files are structurally different. They are often packaged as compressed GZIP archives or structured JSON arrays. If you attempt to open a compressed .beacon file in a standard text editor, you will only see unreadable, corrupted text. Furthermore, applying these files directly to a game server without the Beacon app is notoriously difficult, as the game engine expects raw Game.ini strings rather than this specific format.
To manually edit or review the code, you need to convert or extract the .beacon file into standard JSON or TXT. Because this is a specialized and sometimes compressed format, standard online converters often fail to process it. Just drag and drop your file onto convert.guru to identify the format, view it, and convert it when possible. If our analysis detects a supported underlying JSON or GZIP structure, extracting the internal text content becomes easy.
Convert.Guru analyzes your BEACON file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
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If you want to convert BEACON file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use Beacon Omni or similar software from the "Game Server Configuration" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to BEACON, try Beacon Omni or another comparable tool in the "Game Server Configuration" 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 BEACON converter.