An ARH file isn’t a standardized single-format extension, so determining its purpose requires examining where it came from; frequently it’s linked to Siemens ProTool in industrial automation, where it’s a compressed HMI project package used for backups or transfers—likely if seen alongside Siemens or PLC-related terms—whereas in archaeological work an ARH file may be an ArheoStratigraf project capturing stratigraphy data and Harris Matrix diagrams, often found in folders related to contexts, trenches, layers, or site documentation.

To identify what type of ARH file you have, the fastest practical check is to try opening it with 7-Zip or WinRAR, because some ARH files are just container-style archives; if 7-Zip opens it and shows folders or files, you can extract them and look for clues like project structures, databases, images, or configs—often indicating a packaged project (commonly the Siemens/ProTool type), but if 7-Zip can’t open it, the ARH may still be valid yet proprietary, requiring the original software such as ProTool or ArheoStratigraf, and a helpful trick is copying the file and renaming it to `.zip` (or `.rar`) to see if it’s simply an archive under a different name, with extraction possible if it opens, while the correct opening method depends on your goal: if you only need assets and it extracts cleanly you may avoid using the original tool, but to view or edit the full project you’ll usually need the application that created it.

Because many ARH files serve as packaged project archives, they’re sometimes stored as compressed containers similar to ZIP files, which is why trying 7-Zip or WinRAR is useful even before you know the source program; if 7-Zip opens it, you’ll usually see folders and files—configs, databases, images, logs—that reveal the file’s purpose and let you extract assets without the original software, while a failure to open simply suggests a proprietary format, and a good trick is renaming a copy to `.zip` or `.rar` to test whether it extracts, making this quick archive test an easy way to identify the ARH type and possibly recover what you need right away.

An ARH file cannot be defined purely by its extension because many developers reuse “.ARH” for unrelated purposes, so the extension alone tells you little; instead, the source matters—industrial automation work (Siemens/HMI/PLC) points toward a packaged project, while archaeological stratigraphy work points toward an ArheoStratigraf file—and checking how it behaves in tools like 7-Zip helps determine whether it’s an archive or a proprietary project.

What this means day-to-day is that “.ARH” labels the file without standardizing it, so an ARH from automation circles might be a Siemens/ProTool package containing screens, tag sets, alarms, and configs, while an archaeology ARH might instead be an ArheoStratigraf project with stratigraphy and diagram structure, and even matching filenames can hide unrelated data, which is why checking its origin, nearby files, and behavior in 7-Zip is the safest method to determine if it’s an archive or a proprietary project needing the original software.

You can often identify an ARH file by looking at the *context it’s stored in*—neighboring filenames, folder themes, and domain clues—because the suffix alone doesn’t define the internal format; ARH files near automation-related items like Siemens, ProTool, WinCC, STEP7/S7, PLC, HMI, or engineering project versions are generally Siemens ProTool archives, while ARH files in archaeology directories referencing trench, context, stratigraphy, matrix, or layers and surrounded by site photos or context sheets usually belong to ArheoStratigraf, and testing with 7-Zip helps confirm whether it’s a container or a proprietary project To find out more info regarding ARH file extension reader have a look at our own page. .