Add your CUR file
Drop one or more .cur files onto the converter above, or browse for them. They load into browser memory only — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size-based pricing and no server queue.
CUR to PPM
Converting a .cur image to .ppm re-encodes the pixels for a different balance of size, quality, and support. Free, private, and validated — the file never leaves your browser.
Private for supported formats — processed in your browser
Runs on your deviceConvert supported files
Drop CUR files here
Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.
Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.About converting Windows cursor to Portable pixmap
Converting a .cur image to .ppm re-encodes the pixels for a different balance of size, quality, and support. A .cur file is a Windows cursor: a container holding one or more pointer images at different sizes, plus a hotspot — the exact pixel within the image that counts as the click point. It shares its structure with the Windows icon format and differs from it in only two fields.
A .ppm file is a Portable Pixmap: a full-colour image storing three samples — red, green and blue — per pixel, with the maximum channel value declared in the header. It is the top rung of the Netpbm ladder and the most commonly encountered of the three. For this route the practical draw is full colour with no compression artefacts and no codec to implement and supports 16 bits per channel — balanced against completely uncompressed — typically several times the size of an equivalent PNG, which is worth knowing before you commit a large batch.
Why convert CUR to PPM?
The practical trigger for this conversion is usually a mismatch: with .cur, windows-specific; macOS and Linux use entirely different cursor mechanisms. Switching to .ppm buys you full colour with no compression artefacts and no codec to implement, which is why it is the better fit for output from ray tracers and renderers that want no encoding dependency. Because the conversion runs locally, trying it costs nothing but a few seconds of compute on your own machine.
CUR vs PPM at a glance
| Aspect | Windows cursor (.cur) | Portable pixmap (.ppm) |
|---|---|---|
| Format type | Lossless — every pixel or sample is preserved exactly | Lossless — every pixel or sample is preserved exactly |
| How it stores data | the directory header is identical to ICO except that the type field at offset 2 is 2 rather than 1 — that single value is what makes a file a cursor instead of an icon | p3 stores RGB samples as whitespace-separated ASCII integers; P6 stores them as interleaved raw bytes |
| Strongest at | extracting a cursor image for documentation, screenshot annotation or design reference | output from ray tracers and renderers that want no encoding dependency |
| Weak spot | windows-specific; macOS and Linux use entirely different cursor mechanisms | completely uncompressed — typically several times the size of an equivalent PNG |
| Metadata | the hotspot coordinates and the per-entry size table belong to the container rather than to the image, and no raster target has anywhere to record them. The embedded PNG frame's own metadata is carried through the conversion | none beyond header comments. No ICC profile, no EXIF, no orientation flag — colour is interpreted as sRGB by convention rather than by declaration |
Pick PPM as the output
Select .ppm in the output menu next to each file. The menu only offers targets this engine can genuinely produce, so if PPM is selectable, the route is real and validated.
Convert on your device
Press Convert. Decoding and re-encoding happen on your device using the browser's native image pipeline and hand-tuned encoders.
Verify and download
Each result is signature-checked before the download unlocks, so a failed encode can never masquerade as a valid PPM file. Outputs keep the original filename with the .ppm extension.
CUR to PPM questions, answered
Will converting CUR to PPM lose quality?
Since cur is lossless-oriented and ppm is lossless-oriented, the conversion preserves the source content exactly as stored; no additional compression pass is applied beyond what .ppm itself requires.
Is it private to convert CUR files here?
Yes — the .cur file is processed inside your browser tab and never uploaded. Decoding and re-encoding happen on your device using the browser's native image pipeline and hand-tuned encoders. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.
Where will the PPM file work?
Read by ImageMagick, GIMP, OpenCV, Netpbm and most scientific imaging software; not by browsers or consumer viewers. Novus Convert decodes both the ASCII and binary forms locally, honours the declared maximum value, and converts to PNG, JPEG, WebP, AVIF and the other raster targets for delivery.
Will the PPM file be bigger or smaller than my CUR?
It depends on the content: p3 stores RGB samples as whitespace-separated ASCII integers; P6 stores them as interleaved raw bytes. Convert one representative file first and compare before batch-processing a large set.
What happens to the metadata in my CUR file?
In .cur, the hotspot coordinates and the per-entry size table belong to the container rather than to the image, and no raster target has anywhere to record them. The embedded PNG frame's own metadata is carried through the conversion. Re-encoding through the browser pipeline does not carry embedded metadata into the output, which doubles as a privacy scrub — check the exported file if you specifically need tags preserved.