Extract text from raw sequencing files (FQ)
To convert FQ sequence files to another format, you need FastQC or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Genomic Sequence File" file type, you need software like FastQC or a similar tool.
The .fq file extension is a FASTQ format text file. It stores raw biological sequence data - specifically nucleotide sequences - alongside corresponding Phred quality scores for each base pair. These files are the standard output from next-generation DNA sequencing platforms, most notably those developed by Illumina.
Despite being plain text, .fq files are incredibly difficult to handle. A single sequencing run can generate a file that exceeds 100GB. Attempting to open a .fq file in standard text editors like Notepad or Word will instantly freeze or crash your computer. They consume massive amounts of costly storage and rely on a strict four-line block structure that breaks parsing tools if manually altered or corrupted.
To make this data manageable, conversion or compression is mandatory. For archiving and transferring, convert and compress .fq to gz (gzip) to reduce the file size by up to 80%. If you only need the raw sequence strings and want to discard the heavy quality scores, convert .fq to fasta or fa. For custom scripting and database ingestion, tabular formats like csv or tsv are preferred.
Convert.Guru analyzes your FQ file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted FASTQ, GZ, FA, FSA_NT, FSTA and FASTA files.
If you want to convert FQ file to FASTA, you can use FastQC or similar software from the "Biological Sequence Data Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to FQ, try FastQC or another comparable tool in the "Biological Sequence Data 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 FQ converter.