Extract text from mutation annotation files (MAF)
To convert MAF annotation files to another format, you need maftools or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Bioinformatics Data File" file type, you need software like maftools or a similar tool.
The .MAF file is predominantly a Mutation Annotation Format file. Developed by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), it stores aggregated somatic mutation data - such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and small insertions or deletions (INDELs) - discovered during DNA sequencing. Because it is essentially a rigidly structured, tab-delimited text file, bioinformatics researchers rely on tools like the GDC Data Portal or the R package maftools to process these datasets. Alternatively, .MAF can function as a Microsoft Access Form Shortcut (encoded in UTF-16 LE), allowing Windows users to quickly launch a specific form within an Access database. In rarer cases, it is used as a multiple sequence alignment file by the UCSC Genome Browser or as a proprietary 3D game character animation file for the Capcom MT Framework engine.
Working directly with .MAF files presents severe challenges. Genomic .MAF files are often massive - frequently exceeding 100MB and millions of rows - which guarantees that standard text editors will freeze or crash upon opening them. They also require specialized bioinformatics knowledge to parse the 120+ mandatory columns. Meanwhile, Microsoft Access shortcuts are strictly proprietary, completely useless without the exact accompanying database file locally available, and unsupported by modern web browsers or non-Windows operating systems. Game animation files are entirely locked down and lack native support in standard 3D modeling suites like Blender or Maya.
To make bioinformatics mutation data readable for standard data analysts, convert .MAF to CSV or TSV for easier scripting, or XLSX if the dataset falls under the 1,048,576 row limit of Microsoft Excel. For simple programmatic parsing, converting the file to basic TXT or JSON is highly recommended.
Convert.Guru analyzes your MAF file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted MAF 2, GZ, BIB, PDF, LDB, ACCDB, MAG, VCF, BCM, MCM, FASTA, MAP and PAF files.
If you want to convert MAF file to VCF, BCM, MCM, FASTA, MAP, PAF, EAF, DB, SQLITE, SQLITE3, MDB or ACCDB, you can use maftools or similar software from the "Genomic Mutation Data 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 MAF, try maftools or another comparable tool in the "Genomic Mutation 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 MAF converter.