Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your BKF file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert BKF to another file type
To convert BKF backups to another format, you need NTBackup or other Backup software.
Convert a file to BKF
To convert other file formats to the "Windows Backup Archive" file type, you need software like NTBackup or a similar tool.
About BKF files
The .BKF file is a legacy backup archive created by the Windows Backup Utility, specifically the NTBackup tool included in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Users typically relied on this tool to safeguard personal files, system states, and application data. Opening a .BKF file today presents a major challenge. The format relies on the proprietary Microsoft Tape Format (MTF). Microsoft removed native support for NTBackup starting with Windows Vista. This means modern operating systems like Windows 10 and Windows 11 cannot open these files out of the box. Users face frustrating limits, as recovering data usually requires buying expensive third-party extraction software or setting up an outdated Windows XP virtual machine. This file format is difficult to open or convert because it is a closed, proprietary archive originally built for magnetic tape drives. Standard online converters fail to process it because they lack the specific MTF extraction algorithms. The best workaround is to extract the contents back into their original formats, or convert the archive into a universally supported target format like ZIP or TAR. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your BKF file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert BKF file to VHD, BAK, BACKUP, OLD, TMP, TEMP, ARC, ZIP, TAR, GZ, 7Z or RAR, you can use NTBackup or similar software from the "Legacy System Backup Archive" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert SNAPSHOT, OLD, IMG, RESTORE, ISO, COPY, VMDK, TMP, VHD, BAK, ARCHIVE or BACKUP files to BKF, try NTBackup or another comparable tool in the "Legacy System Backup Archive" category.
The BKF Converter Story
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 BKF converter.