Extract text from Clustal alignments (CLW)
To convert CLW alignments to another format, you need MUSCLE or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Bioinformatics Data File" file type, you need software like MUSCLE or a similar tool.
A .CLW file primarily represents a Multiple Sequence Alignment file generated by the MUSCLE (MUltiple Sequence Comparison by Log-Expectation) software. Researchers use this bioinformatics data format to align nucleotide or amino acid sequences. Alternatively, a small percentage of .clw files are legacy Visual C++ ClassWizard files created by older versions of Microsoft Visual Studio.
The major disadvantage of the MUSCLE alignment format is its highly specialized nature. It relies on strict plain-text syntax that standard office software cannot parse. Opening it in a basic text editor reveals the data, but visually analyzing the alignment requires specialized viewers like Jalview or MEGA. For the Visual C++ variant, the file is essentially obsolete, locked to old developer environments, and only tracks class structures for the legacy MFC ClassWizard.
Users often need to convert bioinformatics .clw files into broader standards like FASTA, ALN (Clustal), or PHY (Phylip) to ensure compatibility with downstream phylogenetic analysis tools. Converting between these formats requires careful handling of spaces, headers, and gap characters, as a single misplaced character will break the dataset entirely.
These files are difficult to convert safely because they are highly specialized scientific outputs or deprecated developer files. If you do not have the original software, standard online converters usually fail to process them. Drag and drop your .CLW file into convert.guru to identify the format, inspect the underlying plain text, and view the internal content. If our analysis detects a supported bioinformatics or text structure, viewing or conversion to FASTA or TXT may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CLW file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted VCF, HOT and DSL files.
If you want to convert CLW file to JS, TS, PY, JAVA, CPP, C, CS, PHP, RB, GO, RS or SWIFT, you can use MUSCLE or similar software from the "Multiple Sequence Alignment Data" 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 CLW, try MUSCLE or another comparable tool in the "Multiple Sequence Alignment Data" 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 CLW converter.