Open a ChessBase database on a Mac, without ChessBase (Beta)

ChessBase files on a Mac, or with no ChessBase licence

ChessBase, Fritz and the ChessBase Reader run on Windows. On a Mac, a Linux machine, a Chromebook or a phone there is no program that opens a ChessBase database, and a Windows PC with an expired ChessBase licence is not much better. Years of annotated games, opening files from a coach or a club's archive end up stuck in .cbh or .2cbh files.

Converting the database to PGN gets the games out in the format every other chess program reads:

• Lichess: import the PGN into a study (up to 64 chapters each); comments, variations, arrows and coloured squares show on the board.
• En Croissant, Scid vs. PC, ChessX, Banksia: open the PGN as a database and search it, train with it or add your own analysis.
• Chess.com, HIARCS Chess Explorer, Arena: import the games for analysis.

How to do it

1. Find the database folder. A database is a group of files with the same name and different endings: .cbh, .cbg, .cba, .cbp, .cbt, .cbc, .cbs and a few more (or .2cbh, .2cbg, .2cba, .2lid for ChessBase 17 and 18).
2. Select all of them and upload them together, or zip the folder and upload the .zip.
3. Download the PGN. Keep the CSV game list if you want an overview in a spreadsheet.

Comments written in ChessBase with figurine symbols come out as letters (Nf3, Qxd4), so they read correctly in any font.

Pitfalls

• A file copied from a Windows PC may arrive without its partner files; the result page lists what was missing (for example, no comments without the .cba file).
• A .cbv file is a compressed archive of a database. You don't need a Windows machine to unpack it: upload it here as it is.
• Very large reference databases (millions of games) are more than one upload can take; up to 400,000 games are converted at a time.

More about what this tool reads and writes: ChessBase to PGN Converter (CBH, 2CBH, CBV).