Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your CPIO file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert CPIO to another file type
To convert your CPIO file to another format, you need GNU cpio or other Backup software.
Convert a file to CPIO
To convert other file formats to the "Unix Tape Archive" file type, you need software like GNU cpio or a similar tool.
About CPIO files
The .CPIO file is a legacy Unix archive format designed to store file hierarchies, permissions, and ownership data in a continuous binary stream. Originally engineered for magnetic tape storage, it functions similarly to TAR but uses a different header structure. While essential for Linux system internals like initramfs and RPM payloads, .CPIO files pose significant usability challenges in modern desktop environments. Because it is a linear stream rather than a random-access block format, browsing individual files without extracting the entire archive is difficult and slow. Furthermore, .CPIO files are uncompressed by default, meaning they take up significant disk space compared to modern alternatives, and they cannot be opened natively on Windows or macOS. To bypass these command-line dependencies and compatibility hurdles, we recommend converting .CPIO to ZIP for general file sharing and cross-platform accessibility. For archiving on Linux systems where preserving permissions is critical but compression is needed, converting to .TAR.GZ is the industry standard.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CPIO file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert CPIO file to TAR, RPM, IMG, BASE64, HEX, BIN, ENC, CRYPT, AES, DES, RSA or PGP, you can use GNU cpio or similar software from the "Unix System Archiving" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert CER, BIN, PEM, DER, KEY, P7S, PFX, ENC, P12, BASE64, P7B or HEX files to CPIO, try GNU cpio or another comparable tool in the "Unix System Archiving" category.
The CPIO 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 CPIO converter.