CUSTOM Converter

Extract text from CUSTOM files

Select File
Drop or upload your .CUSTOM file

Online File Converter

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How to extract text from your CUSTOM file

Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your CUSTOM file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.

Convert CUSTOM to another file type

To convert your CUSTOM file to another format, you need PostgreSQL or other Database software.

Convert a file to CUSTOM

To convert other file formats to the "Backup Archive" file type, you need software like PostgreSQL or a similar tool.

About CUSTOM files

A .custom file is primarily a PostgreSQL Custom Format Dump, created by the pg_dump utility using the -Fc flag. Unlike standard plain-text SQL scripts, this file uses a proprietary binary format that is compressed by default to save space and enable advanced features like parallel restoration and selective object extraction.

While this format is highly efficient for system administrators, it presents a major barrier for standard users: you cannot open it in a text editor (like Notepad or VS Code) or import it directly into spreadsheet software. Attempting to view it results in garbled characters due to gzip compression. To access the data, users typically need to install the full PostgreSQL server suite and use the command-line pg_restore tool to "convert" the binary archive back into readable SQL commands or CSV data.

For most users, the goal is to extract the data without managing a local database server.

For Auditing & Development: Convert to SQL to view the underlying schema, table structures, and INSERT statements.
For Data Analysis: Convert table data to CSV or XLSX for use in Microsoft Excel.
For Archiving: Keep the original .CUSTOM file, as it is the most robust format for long-term storage.

Convert.Guru analyzes your CUSTOM file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.

Users also converted WEBP, PDF, HRV, SVK and THX files.

FAQ

If you want to convert CUSTOM file to , you can use PostgreSQL or similar software from the "PostgreSQL Custom Format Dump" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….

To convert files to CUSTOM, try PostgreSQL or another comparable tool in the "PostgreSQL Custom Format Dump" category.

The CUSTOM 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 CUSTOM converter.