Windows users may occasionally encounter files with a .dmg extension. These DMG files are Apple Disk Image containers that are used in macOS to distribute software or files. While a Windows user likely won’t have use for a DMG file containing a macOS application installer, in the cases where a DMG simply contains files — such as fonts, images, or documents — it may be necessary to open it. If you have access to a Mac, you can simply open the DMG file there and then transfer the extracted files to your Windows PC. If you don’t have a Mac, you can still open the file in Windows, but you’ll need third party software to do so. There are several third party utilities that can open a DMG file in Windows, but one of the easiest is 7-Zip, the free and open-source file archive utility. 7-Zip is one of the first applications we install on new Windows installations for its robust handling of ZIP and RAR archives, so you may already have it installed by the time you need to open a DMG file in Windows.

Open a DMG File in Windows With 7-Zip

  1. If necessary, head over the 7-Zip website to download and install the applicable installer. There are different versions depending on your version of Windows (32 or 64-bit) and installer type (executable (exe), Microsoft Installer Package (msi), or a 7-Zip archive (7z).
  2. Once the utility has been installed, open Windows File Explorer and locate the DMG file. Right-click on the DMG file and you’ll see a 7-Zip command in the menu. Hover your mouse cursor over 7-Zip to reveal the sub-menu of applicable commands.
  3. Select the desired command depending on what you want to do with the DMG file. Selecting Open lets you see the contents of the DMG file in the 7-Zip archive browser without actually extracting them. Selecting one of the Extract commands will extract the DMG contents, either to the current folder (Extract Here), to a new folder with the same name as the DMG file (Extract to…), or to a custom location you can define (Extract files…).
    4. open dmg windows 7zip
  4. Any of these options will give you access to the contents of the DMG file. Note that you will likely see a number of extra folders related to metadata and indexing. These are used by macOS but, due to the different ways that macOS and and Windows handle hidden files, you’ll only see them in Windows. In general you can ignore these extra files and navigate the file or folder structure to find the core files you’re looking for.
open dmg windows extracted Note that 7-Zip does not let you create DMG files in Windows. However, if your intent is to simply share an assortment of documents or media files with Mac users, you can just use a ZIP file, which is natively supported in macOS.