free · in-browser · no upload
Drop your FEN file. We'll convert it to PGN right here in your browser, your file never leaves your device.
Select your file here to get started
or drop your file here.
Accepts .fen, .txt
How it works
Click the dropzone above or drag a FEN from your desktop. Files of any size, there's no upload, so there's no upload limit.
The conversion runs entirely in this tab using JavaScript and WebAssembly. Your file never touches our servers, we don't have any.
Get your PGN the moment the conversion finishes. Convert another, or close the tab.
Your file is never uploaded. The entire conversion runs in your browser using WebAssembly. We can't see what you convert because we have no server to see it.
Server converters cap free users at 1-2 GB and gate larger files behind a paid plan. Since nothing uploads, our limit is whatever your browser can handle.
No account required. No watermark on the output. No queue. Drop a file, get a converted file.
Why convert FEN → PGN
A FEN is a single frozen position. Engines, databases, and chess GUIs open games as PGN. Converting wraps the position in a standards-compliant PGN with the SetUp and FEN tags so you can load it into Lichess study, ChessBase, or an engine as a starting point for analysis.
You found a tactics position posted as a FEN string. You want to analyze it on your desktop engine, which only imports PGN. Paste the FEN, convert, and open the .pgn in your GUI ready to play out lines.
The PGN has no moves.
Correct, a FEN is a position, not a game, so the PGN only carries the starting position via the FEN tag. Your engine or GUI will let you play and save moves from there.
"Could not convert" error.
The FEN is malformed. It is validated before writing so a broken string fails loudly instead of producing a wrong game. Check the piece-placement field has eight ranks separated by slashes.
Formats involved
FEN is a single-line text representation of one chess position, piece placement, side to move, castling rights, en passant target, halfmove clock, and fullmove number. Used by chess engines for position analysis, by chess servers for sharing puzzles, and by GUIs for board setup. Unlike PGN (which represents a game), FEN represents a single static position.
How to open
Any chess engine, GUI, or website's analysis board. Just paste the FEN string.
PGN is the universal text format for chess games, every chess engine, every chess server (chess.com, lichess), every analysis tool reads it. A PGN file is a sequence of game blocks; each block has 7-tag headers (Event, Site, Date, Round, White, Black, Result) followed by the moves in algebraic notation. A single PGN file can contain thousands of games.
How to open
chess.com, lichess.org (paste it into the analysis board), ChessBase, Scid, every chess engine. Plain text in any editor.
FAQ
Yes. No signup, no watermark, no daily file count limit. Every conversion runs in your browser, your file never touches our servers because there are no servers.
Nowhere. The conversion runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript and WebAssembly. Your file is never uploaded to our servers. We don't have any servers handling files, there's nothing for us to log, store, or accidentally leak.
Whatever your browser can hold in memory. Practically, this means a few hundred MB on most computers, significantly larger than the 1-2 GB caps that server-upload converters charge for. Very large files (multi-GB) may require closing other browser tabs first.
Sharing chess positions for analysis. Sharing and analyzing chess games. The most common reason to convert is compatibility, PGN works in places where FEN doesn't, or vice versa.
Any chess engine, GUI, or website's analysis board. Just paste the FEN string.
Once the page is loaded, the conversion itself runs entirely offline. The first time you use a tool, your browser downloads the conversion library (a one-time cache). If you reload while offline, the page won't load, but you can install the site as a Progressive Web App for full offline use.
Single file at a time for now. Batch conversion is on the roadmap, for now, drop one file, download the result, then convert the next.
