Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your ROOT file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert ROOT to another file type
To convert ROOT data files to another format, you need CERN ROOT or other Data software.
Convert a file to ROOT
To convert other file formats to the "Scientific Data Analysis File" file type, you need software like CERN ROOT or a similar tool.
About ROOT files
The .root file is a scientific data storage format created by the CERN ROOT framework. High-energy physicists and researchers use it to store vast amounts of experimental data, including data trees, histograms, and serialized C++ objects. This format is highly specialized and closed within its ecosystem. You cannot open a .root file with standard spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel or standard web browsers. It requires installing the heavy ROOT framework or using specialized Python libraries. The files are often extremely large and utilize custom compression, making them frustrating for general data analysts to handle. To make the data accessible for general machine learning or data science pipelines, researchers often need to convert .root files to CSV, JSON, or HDF5. Note that converting to flat formats like CSV will result in the loss of nested C++ object structures and metadata, reducing the complex data trees to basic tables. This file format is notoriously difficult to open or convert because it uses a complex, proprietary-style object-oriented serialization mechanism. Often, only the original CERN software can properly read or export the data, and standard online converters fail to process it. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your ROOT file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert ROOT file to POWER, you can use CERN ROOT or similar software from the "Scientific Data Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to ROOT, try CERN ROOT or another comparable tool in the "Scientific Data Storage" category.
The ROOT 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 ROOT converter.