Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your PROTO file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert PROTO to another file type
To convert PROTO Protobuf files to another format, you need protoc or other Developer software.
Convert a file to PROTO
To convert other file formats to the "Protocol Buffers Schema" file type, you need software like protoc or a similar tool.
About PROTO files
A .PROTO file is a Protocol Buffers definition file. Developed by Google, this format acts as a contract for serializing structured data. Developers use it to define message formats and RPC (Remote Procedure Call) services. In some cases, .PROTO files also store compiled binary data, Android incident reports, or real-time transit data (GTFS-Realtime). The main disadvantage of this format is its strict dependency on a compiler. A text-based .PROTO schema cannot execute anything without the protoc compiler. If the file contains compiled binary protobuf data, it is completely unreadable without the original schema. You cannot open binary .PROTO files in standard text editors, and they are natively ignored by web browsers. They require specialized developer environments to decode. To make the data usable for debugging or web applications, you must convert the protobuf data into a human-readable format. Convert it to JSON, XML, or YAML to easily inspect the data structure. For archiving the schema, convert it to plain text TXT. Drop your file here to view and convert it securely right in your browser.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PROTO file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert PROTO file to JSON, PYTHON, JS, TS, PY, JAVA, CPP, C, CS, PHP, RB or GO, you can use protoc or similar software from the "Data Serialization Schema" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert SH, PY, KT, PS1, SWIFT, LUA, PL, JAVA, SCALA, JS, VBS or TS files to PROTO, try protoc or another comparable tool in the "Data Serialization Schema" category.
The PROTO 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 PROTO converter.