How to open .VOX files (MagicaVoxel models) on Android, Windows and Linux

Voxel art looks as if it’s built from tiny coloured cubes, and most of it is made in MagicaVoxel, which saves .vox files. If someone sends you one, or you download a pack of voxel characters for a game, there’s no way to look at it on a phone with the editor: MagicaVoxel doesn’t run on phones at all.

A .vox file is a MagicaVoxel model. Folders opens it in its built-in 3D viewer on Android and Windows, for free, with every cube in its palette colour.

What is a .VOX file?

VOX is the file format of MagicaVoxel, a free voxel editor by an independent developer known as ephtracy. A voxel is a 3D pixel: a model is a grid of small cubes, each painted with one of 256 colours from the file’s palette.

Inside, a .vox is a small binary file that starts with the letters VOX, followed by chunks: the size of each model, the position and colour number of every filled voxel, and the palette. Newer files add a scene of several models with groups and layers, plus materials for MagicaVoxel’s renderer, such as glass, metal and glowing cubes. One model can be up to 256 voxels along each side.

The format has spread beyond MagicaVoxel. Other voxel editors such as Goxel and Avoyd read and write it, and games use it too: Teardown, for one, builds its destructible worlds from .vox files.

One name clash to know about: telephone and voicemail systems use .vox for a kind of compressed audio (Dialogic ADPCM). Those files aren’t 3D models.

How to open a .VOX file with Folders

1. Install Folders from the download page and allow it to see your files.
2. Find the .vox file, or search for .vox.
3. Tap it. The model appears in the 3D viewer, standing upright.

From a chat or an email on Android, pick Open with → Folders. On Windows, open the file in Folders, or right-click it in File Explorer and choose Open with → Folders. On Linux, Folders can list and share .vox files but can’t draw them yet: the 3D viewer needs a web view its Linux version lacks. Open with… hands the file to another program.

What you can do with it in Folders

• Every cube in colour. The voxels are drawn in the colours of the file’s palette.
• Turn it around. Drag to rotate, pinch or scroll to zoom, double-tap to frame it again.
• Turntable and screenshot. Auto-rotate spins the model slowly, and Save screenshot keeps a picture: an easy way to show voxel art to someone who doesn’t have the editor.
• Details. The size in model units, which here means voxels, and the number of triangles. Folders builds only the faces you can see, so a solid model has far fewer triangles than its cube count suggests.
• Wireframe, Ground grid and Axes, to see the grid the model is built on.

Folders shows the model, not MagicaVoxel’s render: the glass, metal and glowing materials and the editor’s lighting stay in MagicaVoxel. It doesn’t edit voxels either.

Other ways to open .VOX files

• MagicaVoxel (free, Windows): the original editor and renderer.
• Goxel (free, open source, Windows and Linux): a voxel editor that opens and saves .vox.
• Avoyd (Windows): a voxel editor and renderer that imports .vox, aimed at large scenes.
• Blender, with a VOX import add-on, to render voxel models alongside other scenes.

Problems opening a .VOX file?

Parts overlap in the middle. The file holds several models arranged in a MagicaVoxel scene. Folders draws each model, but not the scene’s arrangement, so the parts can end up on top of each other. Export the scene from MagicaVoxel as OBJ or PLY, which Folders also opens.

It looks flatter than in MagicaVoxel. That’s the renderer’s materials and lighting, which only MagicaVoxel draws. The shapes and colours are the same.

It won’t open at all. Check that it’s really a voxel model: a voicemail .vox is audio and needs an audio converter, not a 3D viewer. A download that stopped early won’t open either; get it again.

Questions people ask

Can I open a VOX file on Android? Yes. MagicaVoxel doesn’t run on phones, but Folders opens .vox models in its 3D viewer, offline.

How do I convert VOX to OBJ or STL? Folders only views. MagicaVoxel’s export panel saves OBJ and PLY; to get STL, open the export in Blender or MeshLab and save it as STL.

Do I need MagicaVoxel to see a .vox file? No. Folders reads the file itself.

Why does Details show so few triangles? Only the outside faces of the cubes are drawn. Faces hidden between two neighbouring cubes are skipped.

More 3D guides: PLY files and GLB and glTF files, or all 382 file types Folders opens.