Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your PVK file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert PVK to another file type
To convert PVK Private keys to another format, you need Windows SDK or other Developer software.
Convert a file to PVK
To convert other file formats to the "Code Signing Private Key" file type, you need software like Windows SDK or a similar tool.
About PVK files
The .pvk file is a proprietary private key format used primarily by Microsoft Authenticode to sign executable files and software. Code signing confirms the software author and guarantees the code has not been altered. You can process these files using the Microsoft Windows SDK or OpenSSL. You can learn more about code signing on Wikipedia. Users frequently need to convert .pvk files because the format is outdated, proprietary to Microsoft, and not supported by modern web servers, Linux systems, or standard CI/CD pipelines. A major disadvantage of the .pvk format is its rigid reliance on older Windows command-line tools. Standard online converters fail to process these files because they are encrypted binary files that require a passphrase to unlock. Furthermore, uploading private keys to random converter websites is a severe security risk. We recommend converting your .pvk and accompanying spc (Software Publisher Certificate) into a combined PFX (PKCS#12) file, or a base64-encoded PEM file for broad compatibility. During this conversion, you will need your original password. Because this is a closed, proprietary cryptographic format, it is difficult to open or convert without the original software. We can inspect the file safely to verify it is a valid Authenticode key. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PVK file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert PVK file to PPK, PEM, PFX, TMP, TEMP, CACHE, LOG, BAK, OLD, NEW, PART or DOWNLOAD, you can use Windows SDK or similar software from the "Private Key Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DEVICE, CACHE, SOCK, SYMLINK, PID, MOUNT, FIFO, LOG, PIPE, TMP, JUNCTION or TEMP files to PVK, try Windows SDK or another comparable tool in the "Private Key Storage" category.
The PVK 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 PVK converter.