How to open .FB2 files (FictionBook e-books) on Android, Windows and Linux

FB2 books are everywhere on Russian, Ukrainian and other Eastern European e-book sites and online libraries. If you’ve downloaded one, you’ve probably found that Kindle and Google Play Books won’t take it, and your phone doesn’t know what it is.

Folders’ book reader opens FB2 and FBZ files on Android, Windows and Linux, for free and offline. No converting to EPUB first.

What is an .fb2 file?

FB2 is FictionBook 2, an e-book format created in Russia and widely used there and in neighbouring countries. Where an EPUB is a ZIP full of web pages, an FB2 book is a single XML file, and it describes the book’s structure rather than its appearance.

An FB2 file has three main parts:

• A description: title, author, genre, language, a short annotation, the cover, and details of the paper edition if there was one.
• The body: sections with titles, paragraphs, poems, epigraphs, citations and footnotes.
• Binary items: pictures such as the cover and illustrations, stored inside the XML as base64 text.

There’s no CSS and no page layout in the file. The reader app chooses fonts, spacing and page size, so FB2 books reflow neatly on any screen, and online libraries can catalogue thousands of them automatically from their descriptions. The downside of storing pictures as text is size: base64 makes images about a third bigger, which is one reason FB2 books are so often zipped.

Extension	What it is
.fb2	FictionBook book: one XML file
.fbz	An FB2 book compressed in a ZIP

You’ll also often see .fb2.zip, a double extension that means the same thing as .fbz. Folders opens those straight in the book reader too.

How to open an .fb2 file with Folders

Android

1. Install Folders from the download section and allow it to see your files.
2. Find the book in Download, or search for .fb2 to list every FictionBook file in a folder.
3. Tap it. The book opens in the reader, ready at the first chapter.
4. If it was sent through Telegram, email or another app, use Open with → Folders.

Windows and Linux

1. Install Folders, browse to the book and open it.
2. On Windows, right-click the file in File Explorer and choose Open with → Folders, which the installer adds.

What you can do with it in Folders

• Table of contents built from the book’s sections, plus bookmarks.
• Search in book, useful for finding a character or a quote.
• Reading settings: text size, margins and themes, including dark ones for night reading.
• Scroll or turn pages, with two-page spreads on a computer or tablet held sideways.
• Previous and next chapter.
• Remembers where you stopped in each book.

Other ways to open .fb2 files

• FBReader, named after the format, for Android, Windows and Linux.
• CoolReader, a free, open-source reader for Android, Windows and Linux.
• Calibre, free on Windows and Linux: views FB2 and converts it to EPUB, AZW3 and other formats.

Problems opening an .fb2 file?

• The text is gibberish. Older Russian FB2 files are often in the Windows-1251 or KOI8-R encoding. The file’s first line should say which; if a book declares the wrong one, every reader shows nonsense. A text editor that can reopen a file in another encoding fixes it: find the encoding that reads correctly, then save the book as UTF-8 and change the encoding named on its first line to match.
• The XML is broken. Hand-edited or badly converted books can contain errors that make strict readers give up. Converting the book with Calibre often repairs it, or look for another copy.
• Your Kindle or Google Play Books won’t take it. Neither supports FB2. Convert it to EPUB in Calibre, then send or upload the EPUB.
• It’s a .zip with several books inside. Some sites bundle a whole series in one archive. Open it in Folders as an archive and tap the book you want.

Questions people ask

How do I open an FB2 file on Android? Install Folders and tap the file. It opens in the book reader offline, with chapters, bookmarks and search.

How do I convert FB2 to EPUB? Calibre converts FB2 to EPUB for free: add the book, choose Convert books and pick EPUB. Folders reads FB2 directly, so you only need to convert for devices that can’t.

Can a Kindle read FB2 files? Not directly. Convert the book to EPUB and use Amazon’s Send to Kindle.

FB2 vs EPUB: what’s the difference? FB2 is one XML file that describes a book’s structure and leaves the look to the reader. EPUB is a ZIP of web pages with its own styling. EPUB is the international standard; FB2 is most common in Eastern Europe.

Related guides: how to open .EPUB files and how to open .MOBI and Kindle files, or see all 382 file types Folders opens.