Extract text from DNA sequence files (CM5)
To convert CM5 DNA sequences to another format, you need SnapGene or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Bioinformatics Sequence File" file type, you need software like SnapGene or a similar tool.
A .cm5 file is a proprietary data container representing DNA or protein sequences, primarily associated with legacy versions of Clone Manager (specifically version 5) and now widely supported by SnapGene. These files store vital molecular biology data - including plasmid maps, primer sites, and open reading frames - in a binary format that standard text editors cannot read. This creates significant friction for researchers who need to share data with colleagues using different software or feed sequences into web-based alignment tools like BLAST. Because the format is version-specific and proprietary, users often face "cannot open file" errors without paid license access to Sci-Ed software or SnapGene.
To overcome these compatibility barriers, the best workflow is to convert .cm5 files into open standards. For pure sequence analysis and alignment, converting to FASTA or TXT is ideal as these formats are universally compatible. If you need to preserve rich annotations (features, gene names, and comments), converting to GenBank (.GB) or EMBL formats is recommended for archiving and publication.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CM5 file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted CM4, CM3 and CM1 files.
If you want to convert CM5 file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use SnapGene or similar software from the "DNA Sequence Storage" 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 CM5, try SnapGene or another comparable tool in the "DNA Sequence Storage" 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 CM5 converter.