What is a .dbf file?
dBASE Database Table · Data · Ashton-Tate (dBASE) · 1983
A .dbf file is a dBASE table: a simple flat database of records with fixed-width fields. The PC-era format survives everywhere, most visibly as the attribute table inside every Esri shapefile.
What is a .dbf file used for?
dBASE was the first mass-market PC database, and its table format outlived the product: FoxPro, Clipper and countless business systems adopted it, and GIS shapefiles still store their attributes in a .dbf today.
There is no fixed magic number: the first byte is a version code (for example 03) followed by the last-update date and record counts, so tools identify DBF structurally. Field names are capped at 10 characters, a limit GIS users still bump into.
What opens a .dbf file?
The .dbf format opens in the following apps, grouped by operating system. If one app does not work, try another from the same list.
Windows
- LibreOffice Calc
- Excel (legacy support)
- QGIS (as attribute table)
macOS
- LibreOffice Calc
- QGIS
Linux
- LibreOffice Calc
- QGIS
- dbfread (Python)
Open a .dbf file step by step
- Confirm the file really is a .dbf. Drop it into the WhatFileType identifier, which reads its signature in your browser without uploading anything.
- On Windows, open it with LibreOffice Calc or Excel (legacy support).
- On Mac, use LibreOffice Calc or QGIS.
- On Linux, try LibreOffice Calc or QGIS.
- Still stuck? Convert the .dbf to csv, which opens more widely.
Why can't I open my .dbf file?
Almost always because no installed app understands DBF. Install one of the apps above, or convert the file to a format your existing software already reads. If double-clicking opens the wrong program instead of nothing at all, the file association is set to the wrong app rather than the file being broken.
The other possibility is that the file is not really a .dbf at all. Drop it into the file identifier to check it by its bytes instead of its name. Nothing is uploaded.
How to convert a .dbf file
You can convert a .dbf file to csv, xlsx, sqlite using a conversion tool or the export menu of an app that opens it.
DBF has no fixed magic number, so there is no signature table on this page. Its bytes alone do not prove the format: identification relies on the extension, the structure of the content and the program that created it. The magic-numbers reference lists the formats that do carry one.
Frequently asked questions
What is a .dbf file?
A .dbf file is a dBASE table: a simple flat database of records with fixed-width fields. The PC-era format survives everywhere, most visibly as the attribute table inside every Esri shapefile.
How do I open a .dbf file?
LibreOffice Calc opens DBF tables directly and can save them back or export CSV. If the file belongs to a shapefile, open the .shp in QGIS and view the attribute table.
Can Excel open .dbf files?
Modern Excel still reads most .dbf files but can no longer save the format. For editing and re-saving DBF, use LibreOffice Calc.
Why are my column names cut off at 10 characters?
That is a hard limit of the DBF format itself, which is why shapefile attribute names are always short. Convert to GeoPackage or CSV to keep longer names.
Related formats
Sources
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