ZOO Converter

Extract text from ZOO files


Drop or upload your .ZOO file

How to extract text from your ZOO file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your ZOO file.
  2. You’ll see a preview, if available.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.

Convert ZOO to another file type

To convert your ZOO file to another format, you need Planet Zoo or other Compressed software.

  • ZOO to TS
  • ZOO to ZIP
  • ZOO to RAR
  • ZOO to 7Z
  • ZOO to TAR
  • ZOO to GZ
  • ZOO to BZ2
  • ZOO to XZ
  • ZOO to LZMA
  • ZOO to CAB
  • ZOO to ACE
  • ZOO to ARJ

Convert a file to ZOO

To convert other file formats to the "Legacy Archive Format" file type, you need software like Planet Zoo or a similar tool.

  • XXE to ZOO
  • 7Z to ZOO
  • Z to ZOO
  • PAK to ZOO
  • LHA to ZOO
  • DEB to ZOO
  • UUE to ZOO
  • TAR to ZOO
  • LZH to ZOO
  • ZIP to ZOO
  • PKG to ZOO
  • RAR to ZOO

About ZOO files

The .ZOO file extension represents a collision between legacy computing history and modern gaming. Historically, it identifies a Compressed Archive created by the ZOO archiver, a command-line utility developed by Rahul Dhesi in the mid-1980s. These files store multiple compressed files and were popular on BBS systems before the ZIP format dominated the market. The main disadvantage today is accessibility; modern operating systems like Windows 11 or macOS generally do not support ZOO archives natively, leaving users unable to extract old data, software code, or text documents without specialized tools like 7-Zip or command-line emulators.

In a modern context, a .ZOO file is frequently associated with Planet Zoo, a construction simulation by Frontier Developments. Here, the file serves as a Blueprint or save file, containing proprietary instruction sets for zoo layouts and animal data. These files are strictly internal; they cannot be "opened" in Microsoft Word or viewed as images. A third less common variation involves Biomechanics Data used with MATLAB, storing kinematic data.

Conversion Best Practices:

Convert.Guru analyzes your ZOO file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.

Users also converted Z00, EMB, PDF, ALZ, B64, A01 and TS files.



The ZOO 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 ZOO converter.