.ini file format
View, inspect, merge, and learn how INI files are used for application settings, software configuration, system preferences, scripts, tools, and development workflows.
Also known as: Configuration
Format
.ini
Original files stay unchanged. Tools download a new file when output is generated.
Every tool listed here works with .ini files and runs in your browser. If the task you need is not here, the related formats below may cover it.
Open and inspect INI configuration files in your browser.
Merge INI configuration files in order with clean separators between files.
Open and inspect common configuration files in a simple browser workspace.
Merge CONF configuration files in order while preserving original text.
Open, search, and inspect plain text files in your browser.
INI files organise settings into bracketed sections containing key-value pairs. There has never been a formal specification, so the details are conventions rather than rules: semicolons and hash marks are both used for comments, quoting around values may or may not be significant, and whitespace handling varies by parser.
INI has one level of grouping. Nesting is faked, usually by dotted key names or by section names containing separators, and the parser has to agree with whoever wrote the file about what those mean. Duplicate keys within a section are another undefined case: some parsers keep the last value, some the first, some collect both into a list.
Desktop application settings, tool configuration, PHP's php.ini, Git's config format, Python's setup.cfg, and Windows shortcut and autorun files. It survives because it is trivially readable and editable by hand — which is also why merging fragments and checking one against another is a common maintenance task.
Both are common and neither is universal. Match whatever the file already uses, and check your parser's documentation if the file is new.
Not natively. Nesting is simulated with dotted keys or compound section names, and the meaning depends entirely on the parser reading the file.
INI names a specific structure of sections and key-value pairs. A .conf extension only tells you the file is configuration — the syntax inside depends entirely on the application.
Merging concatenates the content, so duplicate keys can end up in the same section. Review the merged result, since which duplicate wins is parser-specific.