Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your METALINK file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert METALINK to another file type
To convert METALINK Metadata files to another format, you need aria2 or other Web software.
Convert a file to METALINK
To convert other file formats to the "Download Metadata XML" file type, you need software like aria2 or a similar tool.
About METALINK files
A .METALINK file is not the actual file you intended to download (like a movie, ISO, or archive), but rather a small XML-based map that tells specialized software how to download that file. It contains a list of mirror URLs, peer-to-peer links, and checksum hashes (like MD5 or SHA-256) used to verify data integrity. Users commonly encounter problems here: they download a .METALINK file expecting immediate content, only to find their operating system cannot open it because standard browsers like Chrome or Edge do not natively process these files without extensions. To use the file as intended, you typically need a specific download manager like aria2 or DownThemAll!. If you do not wish to install specialized software just to get a download link, the most practical solution is to convert the .METALINK to TXT or XML. This reveals the source URLs hidden inside, allowing you to manually copy a direct link into your browser. For archiving or inspecting the metadata structure, converting to a clean XML format or a simple text list is best.
Convert.Guru analyzes your METALINK file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert METALINK file to , you can use aria2 or similar software from the "Download Metadata Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to METALINK, try aria2 or another comparable tool in the "Download Metadata Storage" category.
The METALINK Converter Story
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 METALINK converter.