Extract text from Animal Crossing text files (KUP)
To convert KUP text files to another format, you need KUPView or other Game software.
To convert other file formats to the "Game Message File" file type, you need software like KUPView or a similar tool.
A .KUP file is an XML-based game message file primarily used by Nintendo to store localized text, system messages, and character dialogue in games like the Animal Crossing series. Modders and fan translators frequently interact with these files when extracting game data to modify in-game text. The format relies heavily on standard XML tagging to organize strings, making it inherently structured but tailored to Nintendo's proprietary game engines.
While reading a .KUP file is straightforward with code editors like Visual Studio Code or fan-made tools like KUPView, editing them for large-scale translation projects is frustrating. The main disadvantage of the .KUP format is its proprietary, custom schema. Standard translation memory (TM) software and spreadsheet applications do not natively understand the specific node structures used by Nintendo. If you accidentally break the XML structure while editing, the game will crash when the file is repacked.
To manage game text efficiently, modders usually need to convert .KUP files to flat tabular formats like CSV or standard text formats like TXT and JSON.
Because this is a closed, proprietary game format, standard online converters fail to process it. They do not recognize the .kup extension and will reject the upload. However, you can just drag and drop your file into convert.guru to identify the format, view it, and convert it when possible. Since our analysis engine can detect the underlying XML structure, we can safely expose the text nodes, allowing you to bypass the annoying extension limits and extract the dialogue you need.
Convert.Guru analyzes your KUP file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
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If you want to convert KUP file to , you can use KUPView or similar software from the "Game Text Localization Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to KUP, try KUPView or another comparable tool in the "Game Text Localization 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 KUP converter.