Extract text from Hotkey or archive files (HKI)
To convert HKI files to another format, you need Age of Empires II or other Game software.
To convert other file formats to the "Hotkey Configuration File" file type, you need software like Age of Empires II or a similar tool.
The .hki file extension is most commonly a Game Hotkey Profile associated with Age of Empires II or a configuration file for Hotkey Commander. It is also utilized as a character data or save file in games built on the Havok Game Dynamics SDK and classics like Heroes of Might and Magic III. Rarely, it functions as a compressed archive created by the legacy WinHKI software.
The main disadvantage of the .hki format is its proprietary, engine-locked nature. Game-related .hki files are useless outside their specific software environment. They cannot be opened directly by web browsers, and opening them in a standard text editor often yields unreadable binary code. If you try to modify a binary .hki file manually, you risk corrupting your game settings or losing hours of saved character progress. Similarly, the WinHKI archive format is highly obscure and largely obsolete, meaning users without the original legacy extraction software cannot access their compressed data.
Standard online converters fail with .hki files because they lack the specialized engine logic required to parse the data. If you want to share hotkey configurations, the best conversion targets are plain text formats like TXT or JSON, but this typically requires dedicated, community-built parser tools. For WinHKI archives, you must extract the internal files rather than convert the container itself.
This file format is difficult to open or convert, and often only the original software can properly read or export the data. However, just drag and drop your file to convert.guru to identify the exact format, inspect the file, and show text or internal content. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your HKI file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted CRS, ZONE and SKS files.
If you want to convert HKI file to ZIP, RAR, 7Z, TAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ, LZMA, CAB, ACE, ARJ or LHA, you can use Age of Empires II or similar software from the "Game Settings and Save Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert XXE, 7Z, Z, PAK, LHA, DEB, UUE, TAR, LZH, ZIP, PKG or RAR files to HKI, try Age of Empires II or another comparable tool in the "Game Settings and Save 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 HKI converter.