IMA is a raw floppy-disk image with a FAT boot sector. IMA files preserve old floppies for use in emulators and virtual machines. An IMA file is a raw dump of every sector on a floppy with no header or metadata, most often a 1.44 MB 3.5-inch disk. WinImage popularised the IMA dump and its compressed cousin IMZ, letting old diskettes be archived and re-written byte for byte.

How do I open a .IMA file?

Drop a .IMA file onto Analyser at https://analyser.valjdakosta.com/ and it is identified directly in your browser - no upload, no account and no software to install. Open raw disk images (IMG, IMA, DSK) like a folder - Analyser mounts the FAT12/16/32 filesystem, whether a bare SD card / USB / floppy image or an MBR-partitioned disk, and lists every file in a browsable tree and treemap so you can click any one to analyse it, reading the volume label, cluster size and free space along the way; it also carves every image out of the raw sectors, recovering deleted and orphaned photos the directory no longer lists. It identifies virtual-machine and optical images (VHD/VHDX Hyper-V, VMDK VMware, QCOW2 QEMU, VDI VirtualBox, ISO) and shows the partition table; non-FAT filesystems (ISO 9660, ext2/3/4, NTFS, exFAT) are identified but not yet browsed. Compressed backups (IMC - Runtime Software / GetDataBack; ADI - Active@ Disk Image / AOMEI Backupper) are identified with their label and details; convert them to a raw .img in the tool that made them to browse and carve them.

Can I open a .IMA file online for free?

Yes. Analyser is a free online .IMA identifier that runs entirely in your browser - your .IMA file never leaves your device, so there is nothing to upload and no software to install. It even works offline once installed.

.IMA file - what it is and how to identify it online

Analyse a .IMA file

Home › Formats › .IMAID

What is a .IMA file?

IMA is a raw floppy-disk image with a FAT boot sector.

Did you know: IMA files preserve old floppies for use in emulators and virtual machines.
An IMA file is a raw dump of every sector on a floppy with no header or metadata, most often a 1.44 MB 3.5-inch disk.
WinImage popularised the IMA dump and its compressed cousin IMZ, letting old diskettes be archived and re-written byte for byte.
As disk images: Open raw disk images (IMG, IMA, DSK) like a folder - Analyser mounts the FAT12/16/32 filesystem, whether a bare SD card / USB / floppy image or an MBR-partitioned disk, and lists every file in a browsable tree and treemap so you can click any one to analyse it, reading the volume label, cluster size and free space along the way; it also carves every image out of the raw sectors, recovering deleted and orphaned photos the directory no longer lists. It identifies virtual-machine and optical images (VHD/VHDX Hyper-V, VMDK VMware, QCOW2 QEMU, VDI VirtualBox, ISO) and shows the partition table; non-FAT filesystems (ISO 9660, ext2/3/4, NTFS, exFAT) are identified but not yet browsed. Compressed backups (IMC - Runtime Software / GetDataBack; ADI - Active@ Disk Image / AOMEI Backupper) are identified with their label and details; convert them to a raw .img in the tool that made them to browse and carve them.
As disk images / firmware (more): Identify and read more disk images, firmware and VM files: TRX router firmware, USB DFU images, UEFI/BIOS flash volumes (.fd/.rom), Linux UBI volumes, Android sparse images (.simg), U-Boot FIT (.itb), raw floppy images (.dsk/.ima/.vfd with FAT boot sector), VMware snapshot metadata and NVRAM, Parallels VMs and disks (.pvm/.hdd), OVF manifests (.mf) and Veeam backups (.vbk).
Depth of analysis: .IMA 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 .IMA file: Drag a .IMA 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.
Related formats: .ISO · .IMG · .DSK · .IMC · .ADI · .VHD · .VHDX · .VMDK · .QCOW2 · .VDI · .TRX · .DFU · .FD · .ROM · .UBI · .SIMG · .ITB · .VFD and more. See all supported file types.