.QCOW2 File

The qcow2 file extension was used from version 0.9 of QEMU for one of its disk image format.

QCOW image format is one of the disk image formats supported by the QEMU processor emulator. It is a representation of a fixed size block device in a file. Benefits it offers over using raw dump representation include:

• Smaller file size, even on filesystems which don't support holes (i.e. sparse files)
• Copy-on-write support, where the image only represents changes made to an underlying disk image
• Snapshot support, where the image can contain multiple snapshots of the images history
• Optional zlib based compression
• Optional AES encryption

Files with qcow2 extension can be found as one of the default disk image file types from QEMU.

How to open:

You can work with these files in QEMU.

How to convert:

As far as we know, this .qcow2 file type can't be converted to any other file format. This is usually the case of system, configuration, temporary, or data files containing data exclusive to only one software and used for its own purposes. Also some proprietary or closed file formats cannot be converted to more common file types in order to protect the intellectual property of the developer, which is for example the case of some DRM-protected multimedia files.