Free online QCOW to IMG converter

Source format: qcow

QCOW is a QEMU disk image format used for virtual machine storage. It is common in Linux and virtualization environments where QEMU or KVM is used. QCOW images can support features such as copy-on-write, snapshots, and sparse allocation, which makes them efficient for VM disks and testing environments.

Typical use cases include virtual machine hard disks, lab environments, and archived VM images. Depending on the version, you may also see qcow2, which is the more modern and widely used variant.

Target format: img

IMG is a broad disk image format name, but in this conversion it usually means a raw disk image. Raw IMG files store the disk contents directly, without the extra metadata and features found in QCOW. This makes them simple, widely compatible, and easy to use with many virtualization tools, disk utilities, and forensic applications.

IMG files are often preferred when you need maximum compatibility, want to mount the image directly, or need to use it with software that does not understand QCOW.

How to perform the conversion

The best tool for this conversion is usually QEMU’s qemu-img utility. It is designed specifically for virtual disk image conversion and preserves the disk contents accurately.

1. Install QEMU tools if they are not already available on your system.
2. Open a terminal or command prompt.
3. Run a conversion command such as qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O raw input.qcow output.img if your source is qcow2, or adjust the input format if needed.
4. If your file is an older QCOW file, use the matching input format, for example qemu-img convert -f qcow -O raw input.qcow output.img.
5. Wait for the conversion to finish, then verify the output file size and, if needed, test-mount or attach the image in your virtualization software.

If you prefer a graphical workflow, some virtualization managers and disk tools can export or convert disk images, but qemu-img is the most reliable and direct method. You can also convert the file on 101convert.com for free, without installing any software.

Notes on quality, compatibility, and limitations

The conversion from QCOW to IMG is usually lossless for the disk data itself, but some QCOW-specific features are not carried over. In particular, snapshots, compression, and copy-on-write metadata are not preserved in a raw IMG file.

Because IMG is raw, the resulting file is often larger than the QCOW source, especially if the source image was sparse or compressed. Make sure you have enough free disk space before converting.

Also note that qcow and qcow2 are different formats, so using the correct input type matters. If the conversion fails, check the source image version with qemu-img info input.qcow and then rerun the conversion with the proper -f option.