Convert DBF files online for free
The converter easily converts your DBF file to various formats - free and online. No Excel or extra software needed.
The converter also works in reverse, so you can convert other Database formats to DBF with high quality output.
The .DBF file extension represents a standard dBASE Database File, a structured format originally introduced by Ashton-Tate for the dBASE database management system. While considered a legacy format in modern software development, .DBF files remain critically important today as the mandatory attribute table component of the ESRI Shapefile standard used in GIS (Geographic Information Systems).
Users often have trouble with .DBF files because they are binary databases that cannot be opened in standard text editors like Notepad. Although older versions of Microsoft Excel provided robust support, modern spreadsheet software often struggles with legacy character encodings (code pages), strictly limited field names (10 characters max), and file size limitations (2GB max), leading to data corruption or truncation upon saving. Furthermore, if a .DBF is part of a Shapefile set (accompanied by SHP and SHX), editing it in isolation can break the geospatial linkage, rendering the map data unusable.
For general data analysis and reporting, the best solution is converting .DBF to CSV or XLSX. This makes the data accessible in modern tools like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel without legacy constraints. For database migration, converting to SQL or JSON ensures data integrity is preserved for import into systems like MySQL or PostgreSQL. GIS users needing to share data should consider converting the entire Shapefile set to GeoJSON or KML rather than manipulating the .DBF separately.
Convert.Guru analyzes your DBF file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted CPG, SHP, SHX, PRJ, SBN, CDX, SBX, DBT, DFB, ZIP, CST, DB and BDF files.
If you want to convert DBF file to CSV, PDF, XLSX, SQL, SHP, DB, SQLITE, SQLITE3, MDB, ACCDB, ODB or FDB, you can use Microsoft Excel or similar software from the "Structured Database Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert NDF, SQLITE3, BAK, RDB, SQL, DB4, MDF, MDB, LDF, DB, DB3 or SQLITE files to DBF, try Microsoft Excel or another comparable tool in the "Structured Database 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 DBF converter.