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TritonPanels

Guide

How to open CBZ and CBR comic files on iPhone, iPad and Android

Downloaded a comic and ended up with a .cbz or .cbr file your phone refuses to open? These are ordinary archive files with a different extension. Here is what they are, how to read them on a phone or tablet, and what to do with the few files that won’t open.

Last reviewed 16 September 2026 · 6 min read

What CBZ, CBR, CBT and CB7 files are

A comic book archive is simply the pages of a comic, saved as images, packed into one archive file. The letter at the end tells you which kind of archive it is:

ExtensionWhat is insideTritonPanels
.cbzA ZIP archive of page imagesSupported
.cbrA RAR archive of page imagesSupported (RAR4); RAR5 is not
.cbtA TAR archive of page imagesSupported
.pdfA PDF document, one comic page per PDF pageSupported
.cb7 / .cba7-Zip or ACE archivesNot supported — convert to CBZ

The pages are shown in filename order, which is why well-made archives name their images 001.jpg, 002.jpg and so on. Many archives also carry a small ComicInfo.xml file holding the series, issue number, writer and publisher.

Why your phone won’t open them on its own

Neither iOS nor Android includes a comic reader. The Files app on an iPhone can’t preview a .cbz or .cbr, and on Android a file manager treats it as a plain archive at best, offering to unpack hundreds of loose images. To read the comic as a comic — pages in order, a remembered place, zoom and page turns — you need a reader app that understands the format.

Opening comic files on iPhone and iPad

  1. Install TritonPanels from the App Store.
  2. On the library screen, choose to import files. The system file picker opens, so you can pick comics from On My iPhone, iCloud Drive or any storage provider that appears in the Files app.
  3. Or connect Dropbox or OneDrive and browse your folders from inside the app. Google Drive comics are picked through the Files app — see reading comics from Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive.
  4. You can also send a comic to TritonPanels from another app with Open in TritonPanels in the share sheet.

Imported comics are copied into the app’s library, so they open instantly and stay readable offline.

Opening comic files on Android

  1. Install TritonPanels from Google Play.
  2. Import from your device with the system file picker, which reaches your Downloads folder and any storage app you have installed.
  3. Or connect Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive from Connect Storage.
  4. Opening a CBZ, CBR or CBT from a file manager or a browser download also offers TritonPanels.

Android storage providers often report a comic as a generic binary file with no extension. TritonPanels reads the first bytes of the file to work out what it really is, so a comic still imports when the name or type has been lost on the way.

When a CBR file won’t open: RAR5

RAR has two versions in common use. Older archives are RAR4; archives made with recent versions of WinRAR default to RAR5. The libraries mobile apps use to read RAR — UnrarKit on iOS and junrar on Android — only read RAR4, so a RAR5 CBR can’t be opened.

Fix: on a computer, extract the CBR into a folder, then compress the images back into a ZIP file and rename it from .zip to .cbz. Nothing is lost — the images inside are exactly the same, and CBZ is the most widely supported comic format there is.

The same fix works for .cb7 and .cba archives.

Covers, series and issue numbers

When an archive contains ComicInfo.xml, TritonPanels reads the series, number, writer, publisher and other details from it and uses them to group and sort your library. When there is no metadata, it falls back to making sense of the filename, so Saga 012 (2013).cbz still lands in the right series in the right place.

Frequently asked questions

Is a CBZ file just a ZIP file?

Yes. A CBZ is a ZIP archive of page images with the extension changed to .cbz. You can rename a ZIP of comic pages to .cbz and any comic reader will open it.

Can I rename a CBR file to CBZ?

Renaming does not convert anything: a real RAR archive is still a RAR archive with a new name. To turn a CBR into a CBZ, extract the images and compress them into a new ZIP. Some files sold as CBR are really ZIP archives with the wrong extension, and TritonPanels opens those anyway because it checks the contents rather than trusting the name.

Why does my CBR file not open on my phone?

The most common reason is that it was compressed as RAR5, which mobile RAR libraries cannot read. Re-save it as a CBZ. A file that is password-protected, corrupted or only partly downloaded will not open either.

Can TritonPanels read PDF comics?

Yes. PDF comics are read page by page, with the same library, bookmarks and reading progress as archive comics.

Can I read comics I bought in another store’s app?

Only if the store lets you download DRM-free files. TritonPanels reads CBZ, CBR, CBT and PDF files that you own; it cannot open copy-protected purchases that are locked to another company’s app.

Read your comics with TritonPanels

A comic and manga reader for iPhone, iPad and Android. CBZ, CBR, CBT and PDF from your device, Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive — single page, spreads, continuous scroll or Panel by Panel. No ads. 7-day free trial, then a monthly or yearly subscription.

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