Extract text from Assembly or game archives (GFA)
To convert GFA files to another format, you need SPAdes or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Genome Assembly Graph" file type, you need software like SPAdes or a similar tool.
The .gfa file extension primarily represents a Graphical Fragment Assembly file. It is a tab-delimited text standard used in bioinformatics to represent genome assembly graphs. These files capture both nodes (sequence fragments) and edges (overlaps and connections between sequences), which are typically generated by sequence assemblers like SPAdes or mapped by mapping tools like Groot. By maintaining graph structures, researchers can analyze complex genomic variations before resolving them into linear sequences.
While highly valuable for genome research, .gfa files present severe usability challenges. They are highly specialized and often massive. Because they are plain text, users frequently try to open them in standard text editors, which quickly crash due to memory limits when files exceed several gigabytes. Furthermore, the raw tabular graph data is unreadable to the naked eye. To actually interpret the data, you must install specialized graph visualization software like Bandage.
If you need to share or process genetic sequences outside of a graph-based environment, conversion is the most practical workaround. For standard sequence alignment and editing, convert to FASTA or FASTQ (note that the structural edge and overlap data will be flattened and lost). For data extraction and statistical analysis, convert to CSV or TXT. Just drag and drop your file here to analyze and convert it - free, online, and without installing software.
Minor secondary uses for the .gfa extension include proprietary game resource archives used by Nintendo and character animation files for the DAZ Studio aniMate2 plugin. These are closed binary formats and behave entirely differently from the bioinformatics standard.
Convert.Guru analyzes your GFA file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted UXD, ASO, SKY, FASTA, FA and VG files.
If you want to convert GFA file to FASTA, FA or VG, you can use SPAdes or similar software from the "Genome Sequence Graph Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to GFA, try SPAdes or another comparable tool in the "Genome Sequence Graph 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 GFA converter.