All about ORC Files

The ORC file type is primarily associated with Apache Hive.

ORC	File extension: ORC
	File type:	binary file

What is an ORC file?

ORC files mostly belong to Apache Hive. ORC files are used primarily to store structured data in a columnar format. This format is known as optimized Row Columnar and is common in big data systems such as Apache Hive.

Data is organized by column, allowing fast queries on only the necessary parts of a dataset.

They store schema details, indexes, and compression metadata, enabling efficient data retrieval and reduced storage needs.

Some ORC files use the RIFF container for MIDI music, a much less common case. These files play audio and are handled by programs like Cakewalk Express.
FilExt.com note: For more details on the columnar format and its benefits, see Apache Hive.

How to open an ORC file

You need a suitable software like Apache Hive to open an ORC file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your ORC file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a ORC file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online ORC Text Viewer

Choose your .orc file to analyze

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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ORC file format:

To find out what program is needed to open ORC files, you need to determine the file format. A file format is determined by the file extension and signature, so JPEG images have the extension .jpg and the first bytes in the file are ÿØÿ. File extension, signature and file format must match; otherwise errors will occur when the file is opened. Knowledge is power - this also applies when dealing with unknown or faulty files. In the following you will find our evaluation of the ORC files:

The ORC file extension is quite widespread and predominantly uses a uniform format. The file formats most commonly found in ORC files are:

• 90% of all ORC files start with the bytes ORC, which are crucial for this file format. They consist of unreadable binary data. Most of these files are 520 bytes to 3 MB in size. The file type was created recently. These files are attributed to snappy, data, format, zlib, projection, column, audit and logs.
• 4% of all ORC files are using the well-known RIFF file format to store the data. RIFF files store data in tagged chunks. There are primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video. The contents of these files cannot be read by a human; only a computer program can interpret the data. The files are on average 140 KB in size and range from 5 KB to 50 MB. The keywords MThd, MTrk, RMIDdata and RIFF are typical for these files.

All the rest of the ORC files (6%) have different formats, the following 4 formats exist: Csound Orchestra. They are often associated with firehose, sample, customer, stream, usage or demo. If you want to find out what your ORC file contains, drag and drop it onto this page.