Extract text from Java web archives (WAR)
To convert WAR web archives to another format, you need Apache Tomcat or other Developer software.
To convert other file formats to the "Java Web Application Archive" file type, you need software like Apache Tomcat or a similar tool.
A .WAR (Web Application Archive) file is a compressed archive used to distribute a complete web application within the Java / Jakarta EE ecosystem. It bundles JavaServer Pages (JSP), Java Servlets, Java classes, XML configuration files, static web pages (HTML, CSS), and other resources. You can deploy these files on Java application servers like Apache Tomcat or Oracle WebLogic, or open them as standard archives using tools like 7-Zip or WinRAR. For more technical details, you can read the Wikipedia page on the WAR file format.
Despite their importance in enterprise environments, .WAR files present immediate usability challenges for standard users. Because operating systems do not natively map the .WAR extension to built-in archive extraction tools, double-clicking the file usually results in an error. To execute them, you are forced to install and configure a heavy Java web container, which is completely unnecessary if you only want to inspect the contents. Furthermore, these files often scale up to hundreds of megabytes, making them bulky and frustrating to share across non-development teams.
For easy extraction and file sharing, convert or rename the file to ZIP or TAR. If you need to repackage backend logic for a different Java environment, convert the archive to JAR.
Convert.Guru analyzes your WAR file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted RAR, EAR, ZIP, VAR, WEBARCHIVE, MP3, JAVA, GZ, HTML, JSP, JAR, DOCX and PDF files.
If you want to convert WAR file to ZIP, JAR, RAR, 7Z, TAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ, LZMA, CAB, ACE or ARJ, you can use Apache Tomcat or similar software from the "Java Web Application Deployment" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert XXE, 7Z, Z, PAK, LHA, DEB, UUE, TAR, LZH, ZIP, PKG or RAR files to WAR, try Apache Tomcat or another comparable tool in the "Java Web Application Deployment" category.
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 WAR converter.