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 CONTROL Metadata files to another format, you need dpkg or other System software.
Convert a file to CONTROL
To convert other file formats to the "Package Metadata File" file type, you need software like dpkg or a similar tool.
About CONTROL files
The .control file is a plain text metadata document that resides within a Debian software package (deb). It defines critical information such as the package name, version, architecture, maintainer, and dependency relationships required by the dpkg package manager. While this format is highly efficient for Linux environments, it presents challenges for everyday users. It is strictly formatted using RFC 2822-style stanzas, meaning accidental whitespace, incorrect line breaks, or missing fields will completely break the package installation. Furthermore, the file is inherently tied to the Linux ecosystem, making it useless as an installer on Windows or macOS. Users often need to convert .control files when analyzing software dependencies, auditing security, or migrating metadata into documentation systems. Because this is a highly specialized system file, standard online converters usually fail to process it. Just drag and drop your file to identify the format, view it, and convert it when possible on convert.guru. We recommend converting .control files to JSON or YAML for easier automated parsing, or to TXT for simple cross-platform reading.
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 "Debian Package Metadata Storage" 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 "Debian Package Metadata Storage" 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.