Paradox files

A Paradox table is a .db file, often with a .mb file of the same name that holds its memo text. Add both to the converter above and the table comes back as Excel or CSV, read inside this browser tab with nothing uploaded. Tables from Paradox 3.0 to 7 convert; password-protected tables don't.

Updated 19 October 2026 · How we test this format

Which conversion do you need?

• Paradox to Excel to read, sort and filter the data: real dates, times and numbers, with money formatted as money.
• Paradox to CSV to move the data into another database or a script, or when a table is too big for one workbook.

The converter above does both. Pick Excel or CSV under To before you add your files.

What a Paradox file is

Paradox was one of the best-known desktop databases of the DOS and early Windows years. Ansa Software released it for DOS in 1985. Borland bought Ansa in 1987 and made Paradox its own database, and in 1996 Corel took it over and sold it in the professional editions of WordPerfect Office.

In Paradox, every table is a file of its own. A .db file holds one table: a header that lists the fields, then the records, packed into fixed-size blocks that point to one another. What people call a Paradox database is usually a folder of these tables, with the memo, index and lock files the program kept beside them.

The format outlived the program because of the Borland Database Engine, the BDE. Many Delphi and C++Builder applications used it to keep their data in Paradox tables, so .db files still turn up behind accounting and stock software, membership lists and in-house tools from the 1990s and 2000s, long after anyone opened Paradox itself. The BDE is no longer developed, and the program that wrote a table is often gone. This page reads the tables without either.

The files around a .db

• .db The table itself, and the file to convert.
• .mb Memo and binary data for the table with the same name. A memo field keeps only its first characters inside the .db; the rest of the text is in the .mb. Add the two in the same selection and the converter pairs them by name, whatever the capitals.
• .px The primary index of a keyed table, used to find records by their key. Every record is in the .db, so it isn't needed; if you add it, it's set aside.
• .X01, .Y01, .val and similar Secondary indexes and validity checks. They hold no records. If they're in your selection, their rows say "This format isn't on our list yet" and you can ignore them.
• PDOXUSRS.NET, PDOXUSRS.LCK, PARADOX.LCK Lock and network control files that Paradox and the BDE write while tables are open. No data lives in them.
• Forms, reports, queries and scripts Separate files that describe how the data was shown or changed. They hold no records, so there's nothing in them to convert.

Converting a whole folder? Select the .db and .mb files together, in the file picker or by dragging them in. Up to 5 tables convert at a time on the free plan, and the rest wait in the list with a button to convert the next ones. A .mb file doesn't count toward the 5.

Versions and field types

Each table's header names the version of the format that wrote it: Paradox 3.0 or 3.5, Paradox 4, or the Paradox 5 and 7 formats of the Windows years. The converter reads all five, whichever program wrote the file, and our test tables cover Paradox 3.0, 4, 5 and 7.

A field's type letter decides what its bytes mean, and what it becomes when you convert:

A blank field stays blank. Records come out in the order the table keeps them, following its chain of data blocks. Deleted records aren't exported: Paradox removes them from the table's blocks, and leftovers in unused blocks are ignored.

Text encoding

Paradox stores text in a code page, a table that maps bytes to letters, and the right one depends on where the data was typed. Tables from Paradox 4 on name their code page in the header, and we decode the text with it. Paradox 3.x tables don't name one, so we assume DOS 437, the code page of American DOS, and What changed says so. The same happens if a header names a code page we can't read yet; the note gives its number.

If accented letters come out wrong, choose another code page under Text encoding and add the file again. The list holds Western (Windows-1252), Central European (Windows-1250), Cyrillic (Windows-1251), Turkish (Windows-1254), Cyrillic DOS (866), Western DOS (850), US DOS (437) and UTF-8. Our test tables use DOS 437, DOS 857, Windows-1252 and Windows-1254.

Paradox .db, not SQLite

The .db ending is shared. SQLite, the database inside countless phone apps, browsers and desktop programs, often uses it, and Windows leaves a hidden Thumbs.db file in folders of pictures. Neither is a Paradox table. We check the first bytes of every file, so an SQLite database or a thumbnail cache stops with "This file isn't one we can convert with this tool." instead of turning into a broken spreadsheet. Both kinds are in our tests.

A Paradox table usually sits next to other .db files with short names, often with .px or .mb files beside it. If yours turns out to be an SQLite database, an SQLite tool can export it; this page is for Paradox.

This is the table for Excel. For CSV, the three rows about Excel's limits don't apply, and Paradox to CSV shows its own. You don't have to work out which rows apply to your file: What changed under it lists them, with counts.

How we test

We wrote our reader from two public descriptions of the Paradox file format, not from another program's code. To check it, we made 8 test tables for this site that cover every Paradox field type and the awkward cases: blank values, memo text with and without its .mb file, data blocks stored out of order and a table with no records. Together they hold 5,100 records.

Every value is compared with the saved output of two independent open-source Paradox readers. Of the 15,450 values, 15,416 match pxlib exactly. Each of the other 34 is a known habit of that reader: it reads a blank number or date as a value such as 0; it treats a bytes value that starts with a zero byte as blank; it reads all text as Latin-1, whatever code page the table names; it leaves a memo blank when the .mb file is missing, where we keep the first characters. The second reader, paradox-reader, reads 7 of the tables and agrees on 15,375 of 15,435 values, again with every difference accounted for. Record and field counts match both readers in every table each can read.

We also check that two files that only share the .db ending, an SQLite database and a Windows thumbnail cache, are turned away, and that a password-protected table stops with a clear message. Our tests run all of this again on every change to the code, and they fail if a number moves.

The test tables were written for this site because Paradox files we're allowed to publish are rare. They exercise every part of the format we read, but they aren't anyone's real data.

Tested on 14 October 2026: our sample table, converted to Excel, opened in Numbers 14.5 on macOS 26.2 with each of its 11 fields, its Turkish text, dates, times and money in place.

Why some things aren't here

• Password-protected tables. Paradox can encrypt a table with a password. How it does that isn't described in the public documentation we work from, so these tables stop with "This file is password protected. Remove the password in the original app, then try again." If you know the password, remove it in Paradox or in the program that made the table, then convert that copy.
• Saving back to Paradox. We read Paradox tables; we don't write them. If an older program needs your data as a table file, DBF is one we do write: see CSV to DBF.
• Indexes, forms, reports and queries. Only table data is exported. Keys and sort orders don't travel; sort the result by the key fields, which in Paradox are always the first fields of the table.

When a .db won't convert

The file's row tells you when something stops a conversion. Here's what each message means for a Paradox table.

• "This file isn't one we can convert with this tool." The file isn't a Paradox table we can read. Most often it's an SQLite database or a Thumbs.db file that shares the .db ending.
• "This file is password protected. Remove the password in the original app, then try again." The table is encrypted. See Password-protected tables above.
• "This file looks damaged, or it isn't the format its name suggests." The header doesn't add up: the file stops inside its header, or the field sizes don't match the record size. That usually means a copy that stopped short; copy the table again from the original disk or backup.
• Fewer rows than you expected. If What changed says the header counts more records than were read, or that the chain of data blocks is damaged, the table was damaged before it reached you, and the rows that could be read are in your file. If the original program is still around, its table repair may recover more.
• "This table has more cells than one workbook can hold here. Converting to CSV handles any size." Excel only: one workbook made here holds up to 8,000,000 cells, rows times fields. Convert the table to CSV instead.
• "This file is on the large side" Big tables ask before they start, and you can always continue. A .mb file counts toward the size with its table.
• "This file is too large to convert on this device. A smaller file or more memory may help." The file is over 1 GB, or it's a damaged table whose memo pointers would unpack to far more text than its .mb file holds.
• "Something unexpected stopped this conversion. If trying again doesn't help, reload the page." Reload the page and convert the file once more. If the same table keeps failing, it probably uses something our reader doesn't handle yet.

Want to see a result before using your own table? Download the sample table (4 KB), a Paradox 7 file with one field of each common type, and drop it above.