---
name: "qcowinfo"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "libqcow-utils"
version: "20240308-1+b1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/qcowinfo"
---

# qcowinfo(1)

determines information about a QEMU Copy-On-Write (QCOW) image file

## NAME

**qcowinfo** – determines information about a QEMU Copy-On-Write (QCOW) image file

## SYNOPSIS

**qcowinfo** \[**-hvV**\] *source*

## DESCRIPTION

**qcowinfo** is a utility to determine information about a QEMU Copy-On-Write (QCOW) image file

**qcowinfo** is part of the **libqcow** package. **libqcow** is a library to access the QEMU Copy-On-Write (QCOW) image format

*source* is the source file.

The options are as follows:

- **-h**

  shows this help

- **-v**

  verbose output to stderr

- **-V**

  print version

## ENVIRONMENT

None

## FILES

None

## EXAMPLES

```
# qcowinfo file.qcow
qcowinfo 20201112
QEMU Copy-On-Write (QCOW) image information:
        Format		: 2
...
```

## DIAGNOSTICS

Errors, verbose and debug output are printed to stderr when verbose output -v is enabled. Verbose and debug output are only printed when enabled at compilation.

## BUGS

Please report bugs of any kind to \<joachim.metz@gmail.com\> or on the project website: https://github.com/libyal/libqcow/

## AUTHOR

These man pages were written by Joachim Metz.

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2010-2024, Joachim Metz \<joachim.metz@gmail.com\>.

## SEE ALSO