Drop any file to identify it
No upload. No signup. No sending your file halfway across the internet.
We tell you what it is, right here in your browser.
Drop it!
Let go to identify this file.
Couldn't identify this file
Need to convert it? fwip it →
QCOW2 is the native disk format for QEMU and KVM — the virtualisation stack that powers most Linux cloud infrastructure. AWS, Google Cloud, and countless hosting providers run KVM under the hood, making QCOW2 one of the most widely used virtual disk formats in production, even though most users never see it.
The format's copy-on-write design means snapshots are nearly instant — creating a snapshot just starts recording changes from that point, without copying the entire disk. QCOW2 also supports transparent compression (zlib or zstd), AES encryption, and backing files (a snapshot chain where each file stores only its differences from the parent).
QEMU and virt-manager are the standard tools on Linux. `qemu-img` creates and converts QCOW2 images. For cross-platform use, convert to VMDK (VMware) or VDI (VirtualBox) with `qemu-img convert`. The format isn't supported natively on Windows or Mac but can be used through QEMU's cross-platform builds.