Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your CONTROL file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert CONTROL to another file type
To convert your CONTROL file to another format, you need dpkg or other Text software.
Convert a file to CONTROL
To convert other file formats to the "Package Configuration File" file type, you need software like dpkg or a similar tool.
About CONTROL files
A .control file is primarily known as the metadata blueprint for software packages within the Debian ecosystem and its derivatives like Ubuntu. These plain text files define critical package information - such as the package name, version, architecture, maintainer details, and complex dependency relationships - used by the dpkg package manager. While they are technically human-readable, the primary source of friction is that operating systems like Windows and macOS treat the .control extension as an unrecognized binary format. This prevents users from simply double-clicking to view the contents, forcing them to manually associate text editors or use command-line tools. Furthermore, editing these files in rich text processors (like Microsoft Word) often introduces invalid formatting or encoding issues that render the package unusable. For inspection or documentation, the most practical workflow is converting .control files to TXT for universal compatibility, or to structured data formats like JSON or XML to programmatically parse dependencies without needing a Linux environment.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CONTROL file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert CONTROL file to INI, CFG, CONF, CONFIG, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, ENV, PROPERTIES or RC, you can use dpkg or similar software from the "Package Metadata Definition" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert ZSHRC, CONF, RCFILE, GITCONFIG, RC, PLIST, BASHRC, CONFIG, PROFILE, INI, PREFS or CFG files to CONTROL, try dpkg or another comparable tool in the "Package Metadata Definition" category.
The CONTROL 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 CONTROL converter.