Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your PCAP file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert PCAP to another file type
To convert PCAP capture files to another format, you need Wireshark or other Data software.
Convert a file to PCAP
To convert other file formats to the "Network Packet Capture" file type, you need software like Wireshark or a similar tool.
About PCAP files
The .PCAP (Packet Capture) file format is a binary standard used to store network traffic data. Network administrators and security analysts use these files to troubleshoot network issues, detect security breaches, and analyze protocol behavior. The data is usually captured using tcpdump or Wireshark. The main disadvantage of the .PCAP format is its binary nature and massive potential size. Files can easily exceed hundreds of megabytes in a busy network, making them impossible to open in standard text editors. Furthermore, .PCAP files often contain sensitive unencrypted payloads, including passwords and personal data, posing a massive privacy risk if shared raw. Users frequently need to convert .PCAP files to human-readable formats like CSV or TXT to filter specific IP addresses or protocols in standard spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel. Converting to JSON is also common for automated security analysis. However, converting often strips away the raw binary payload and leaves only the packet headers. Because it is a specialized binary dump, standard online converters often fail to process .PCAP files correctly. Often only the original network analysis software can properly read or export the data. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion to structured text may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PCAP file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert PCAP file to TEXT, CSV, JSON, PDF, PCAPNG, TS, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI or CFG, you can use Wireshark or similar software from the "Network Traffic Analysis" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to PCAP, try Wireshark or another comparable tool in the "Network Traffic Analysis" category.
The PCAP 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 PCAP converter.