Formats

Docs

What Is a MOBI File? Kindle’s Old Format, and What to Do With One Now

Amazon retired MOBI in 2022. Files you already have still open on devices that already have them, but you cannot send ne...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Docs

What Is an ICS File? The Calendar Invitation, Opened Up

Every meeting invite you receive is a small text file. Understanding four things inside it explains duplicate events, me...

Nov 1, 2026 5 min

Images

What Is EXIF? The Data Hidden in Every Photo You Take

Your phone writes your location, the exact second, your camera's serial number and dozens of other fields into each phot...

Nov 1, 2026 5 min

Docs

What Is XML? Not Dead — Just Hiding Inside Files You Use Every Day

People say JSON replaced XML. It replaced it for data. XML still runs your Word documents, your ebooks, your SVG logos a...

Nov 1, 2026 5 min

Docs

What Is JSON? The Format Your Data Arrives In When You Download It

Ask any service for a copy of your data and you will probably get JSON. It has only six kinds of value, no comments at a...

Nov 1, 2026 5 min

Docs

What Is a CSV File? The Simplest Format, and the One That Eats Your Data

A CSV is a text file where each line is a row. That simplicity is why it is everywhere — and why it silently destroys le...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Images

sRGB vs Display P3: Why Your Photo Looks Different on Every Screen

A hex value does not name a colour. It names a position in a colour space — and if the file never says which space, ever...

Nov 1, 2026 5 min

Docs

What Is Markdown? Plain Text That Already Looks Like What It Means

A heading is a line starting with #. Bold is **two asterisks**. That is nearly the whole format — and it is why Markdown...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Docs

What Is EPUB? It’s a Website in a Zip File

Rename an .epub to .zip and open it — inside you will find HTML and CSS. Knowing that explains everything the format doe...

Nov 1, 2026 5 min

Video

Codec vs Container: Why Your MP4 Won’t Play

MP4 is the box, not the contents. Two files with the same extension can be completely different inside — which is why on...

Nov 1, 2026 5 min

Images

What Is an ICO File? One File Holding Several Icons at Once

ICO is the only common image format that stores many images in one file — because an icon drawn for 256 pixels turns to ...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Images

What Is a JFIF File? It Is a JPEG, and Renaming It Is Safe

You saved an image from a browser and got .jfif instead of .jpg. The file is a JPEG — identical bytes. Here is why the e...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Docs

CSV vs XLSX: What You Lose When You Save As CSV

CSV holds values and nothing else — no formulas, no formatting, no sheets. It also quietly mangles phone numbers and dat...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Images

What Is a PSD File? Photoshop’s Working Format Explained

A PSD is not a picture — it is a project. Layers, masks and editable text, which is why it is huge and why it does not b...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Images

What Is a BMP File? Windows’ Simplest Image Format

BMP stores pixels almost exactly as they are, with barely any compression. That makes it enormous, obsolete for most use...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Images

What Is a TIFF File? The Format Print and Archives Still Trust

TIFF is forty years old, enormous, and still the standard for scanning, print and long-term storage. Why it survived, an...

Nov 1, 2026 4 min

Images

What Is an AVIF File? The Format That Beats WebP

AVIF compresses harder than JPG and WebP, handles HDR and wide colour, and is slow to encode. What that trade-off means ...

Nov 1, 2026 3 min

Images

What Is a WebP File? Google’s Image Format Explained

WebP replaces both JPG and PNG with one format — smaller files, transparency, animation. What it does well, where it sti...

Nov 1, 2026 3 min

Video

What Is a MOV File? Apple’s QuickTime Video Format Fully Explained

MOV is a video container format developed by Apple using the QuickTime technology framework, identifiable by the .mov fi...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Video

What Is an MP4 File? The World’s Most Universal Video Format Explained

MP4 — formally known as MPEG-4 Part 14, with the file extension .mp4 — is the world's most widely used video container f...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Video

What Is a WebM File? Google’s Open-Source Web Video Format Explained

WebM is an open-source video format launched and actively promoted by Google in 2010, designed specifically for native v...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min

Video

What Is an MKV File? The Matroska Container Fully Explained

MKV — Matroska Video, using the .mkv file extension — is an open-source multimedia container format celebrated for its e...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Video

What Is an AVI File? Microsoft’s Legacy Video Format Explained

AVI — Audio Video Interleave — is a video container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992. Identifiable by the...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min

Images

What Is a RAW Image File? The Photographer’s Complete Guide

Every photography tutorial at some point tells you to "shoot RAW." But for beginners and intermediate photographers, RAW...

Oct 13, 2026 6 min

Images

What Is an SVG File? Vector Graphics Explained

Zoom in on a JPEG photograph at 400%, and you'll see pixels — blocky squares of color that reveal the fundamental limita...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min

Images

What Is a PNG File? Transparent Images Explained

The logo in your browser tab is probably a PNG. The icons in the app you're using right now are likely PNG. When a desig...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Images

What Is a JPG File? The Complete Guide to the World’s Most Common Image Format

The photos on your phone are almost certainly JPG. The product images on the e-commerce site you visited this morning we...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Images

What Is a HEIC File? Apple’s Photo Format Explained

In September 2017, Apple updated iOS 11 and quietly changed what format iPhones use to save photos. The default shifted ...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min

Images

What Is a GIF File? The Complete Guide to Animated Images

GIF may be the most culturally anomalous file format in computing history. A format designed in 1987 for transmitting si...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min

Docs

What Is a TXT File? Plain Text Explained

Among all computer file formats, .txt is the simplest, oldest, and most underestimated. No bold text. No fonts. No color...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min

Docs

What Is an RTF File?

Long before DOCX became the office standard, before PDF was everywhere, and when exchanging a formatted Word document be...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Docs

What Is an ODT File? The Open Document Format Explained

.odt stands for OpenDocument Text — the native document format of LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and other open-source office ...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Docs

DOC vs DOCX: What’s the Difference?

If you've ever opened a dusty old Word file only to see a "Compatibility Mode" banner at the top of your screen, you've ...

Oct 13, 2026 4 min

Audio

What Is an OGG File? Open-Source Audio Format Fully Explained

OGG is an open-source multimedia container format developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, completely free to use and unenc...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min

Audio

How FLAC Lossless Compression Actually Works

FLAC — Free Lossless Audio Codec — is an open-source audio compression format developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. Sinc...

Oct 13, 2026 5 min