How to open a .ACE file online
No extra software to download or install.
Pick your .ACE file
Drag it in or click to choose it. We read its contents list first, so it opens right away without unpacking everything.
Browse what's inside
See every file with its size, how much it's compressed and its date, and search by name across all the folders.
Preview or download
Click a file to preview text or images, or save just that one. Need everything? Download it all as a single ZIP.
About .ACE files
What a .ACE file is, and what's inside it.
An ACE file is a compressed archive - like ZIP or RAR - created by the old WinAce program, abandoned around 2007. To open one, use PeaZip or IZArc on Windows, or The Unarchiver on macOS. Do not use WinRAR or 7-Zip: WinRAR removed ACE support in 2019 over a serious security flaw, and 7-Zip never supported the format.
Programs that open .ACE files
| Full name | WinAce Compressed Archive |
|---|---|
| Developer | e-merge GmbH (Marcel Lemke) / WinAce |
| First released | 1998-1999 (ACE 1.0 / WinAce); ACE 2.0 added stronger compression |
| Category | Archives |
| MIME type | application/x-ace-compressed |
| Signature | 2A 2A 41 43 45 2A 2A "**ACE**" |
Related viewers
Found something inside the archive? Open it here.
Do I have to unpack the whole .ACE file?
No. The viewer reads its table of contents first and only unpacks a file when you click it. That works even with multi-gigabyte archives, because we read just the bytes we need.
Can I open password-protected archives?
Yes, for ZIP (ZipCrypto and AES) and 7Z. You'll be asked for the password,. We can't recover forgotten passwords.
Is my .ACE file uploaded anywhere?
No. The code that unpacks the file is downloaded once and then reused.
Why does a .docx or .apk open as an archive?
Because they are ZIP archives under the hood. Office documents, Android apps, Java programs and EPUB books all use ZIP as their container.
What about split archives (.001, .z01, .part1.rar)?
Multi-part archives need all their parts. Today you can open the first part to see the file list; joining parts is on our roadmap.
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