What is a .ANI file?
ANI is an animated Windows mouse cursor.
- Did you know
- ANI files gave Windows its spinning and waving animated cursors.
- ANI is built on Microsoft’s RIFF container, the same wrapper used for WAV and AVI, here holding a sequence of cursor frames.
- Each frame is itself an ordinary Windows icon or cursor, simply chained together to produce the animation.
- What Analyser reads
- Decode and preview extra still-image formats in pure JavaScript - Truevision TGA, QOI, Netpbm (PPM/PGM/PBM), PCX, farbfeld, WBMP, XBM/XPM, Sun Raster and SGI are fully rendered - and read header metadata from codec-heavy formats: Radiance HDR, DirectDraw Surface (DDS) game textures, OpenEXR, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, EPS/PostScript, Windows WMF/EMF metafiles, Apple ICNS icons, CUR/ANI cursors, MNG and Lottie animations.
- Depth of analysis
- .ANI is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .ANI file
- Drag a .ANI file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.