Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your PBO file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert PBO to another file type
To convert PBO object files to another format, you need Arma 3 Tools or other Game software.
Convert a file to PBO
To convert other file formats to the "Proprietary Game Asset Archive" file type, you need software like Arma 3 Tools or a similar tool.
About PBO files
The .PBO file format primarily functions as a Packed Bohemia Object archive. Developed by Bohemia Interactive, it stores game assets like 3D models, textures, sounds, and scripts for the Arma series and DayZ. A secondary use case is an obsolete mobile phone contacts backup format based on the vCard standard. To open or modify game .PBO files, users typically rely on community-developed software like Mikero's Tools or PBO Manager, as standard archive utilities like WinRAR or 7-Zip cannot parse the proprietary headers. This makes the format frustrating to work with when you just want to inspect an Arma mod's source code or texture files. Furthermore, the phone backup variant is completely unreadable on modern smartphones without translation. For game modding, extract the .PBO to a standard archive like ZIP or raw asset files to modify the contents. If you are dealing with a legacy phone book file, convert it to VCF or CSV to import your contacts into Google Contacts or iCloud.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PBO file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert PBO file to PB, EXE, ISO, BIN, CUE, PAK, WAD, PK3, PK4, BSP, MAP or SAV, you can use Arma 3 Tools or similar software from the "Game Data Archive" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MOD, BIN, CFG, SCX, DAT, MPQ, LOG, CUE, INI, EXE, SCM or ISO files to PBO, try Arma 3 Tools or another comparable tool in the "Game Data Archive" category.
The PBO 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 PBO converter.