Converting from Perfetto to other trace formats

Perfetto's native protobuf trace format can be converted to other formats using the convert subcommand of trace_processor.

NOTE: This functionality used to live in a separate traceconv tool. That tool has been folded into trace_processor. The traceconv download still works as a back-compatible alias (it now fetches trace_processor and runs it in this mode), but new scripts and docs should use trace_processor.

To attach native symbols or ProGuard/R8 deobfuscation mappings to a trace, see Symbolization and deobfuscation instead (the bundle and util subcommands). This page covers only format conversion.

To dump trace processor's parsed tables (rather than the trace itself) as SQLite, Arrow or a reloadable Perfetto archive, use the export subcommand instead: see Export trace data.

Prerequisites

A host running Linux, macOS or Windows
Python 3 (only required if using the trace_processor wrapper script below; on Windows this also requires curl, which ships with Windows 10 and later)
A Perfetto protobuf trace file

Usage

To use the latest binaries:

curl -LO https://get.perfetto.dev/trace_processor
chmod +x trace_processor
./trace_processor convert <format> [OPTIONS] [input_file] [output_file]

curl.exe -LO https://get.perfetto.dev/trace_processor
python trace_processor convert <format> [OPTIONS] [input_file] [output_file]

The trace_processor script is a thin Python wrapper that downloads and caches the correct native binary for your platform under ~/.local/share/perfetto/prebuilts on first use.

convert reads from stdin and writes to stdout when the input or output paths are omitted (or passed as -). Run ./trace_processor help convert to print the full list of formats and options supported by your version.

Format conversion

Format	Output
`text`	protobuf text format — a text representation of the protos
`json`	Chrome JSON format, viewable in `chrome://tracing`
`systrace`	ftrace text/HTML format used by Android systrace
`ctrace`	compressed systrace format
`profile`	aggregated pprof profile (heapprofd, perf, Java heap graphs)
`firefox`	Firefox profiler format

Examples:

./trace_processor convert json     trace.perfetto-trace trace.json
./trace_processor convert systrace trace.perfetto-trace trace.html
./trace_processor convert text     trace.perfetto-trace trace.textproto

profile writes one or more .pb files into a directory (a random tmp directory by default) rather than a single output file, so use --output-dir instead of a positional output path:

./trace_processor convert profile --output-dir ./profiles trace.perfetto-trace
./trace_processor convert profile --java-heap --pid 1234 --output-dir ./profiles trace.perfetto-trace
./trace_processor convert profile --perf --timestamps 1000000,2000000 --output-dir ./profiles trace.perfetto-trace

Common options:

--truncate start|end (for systrace, json, ctrace): keep only the start or end of the trace.
--full-sort (for systrace, json, ctrace): force full trace sorting.
--skip-unknown (for text): skip unknown proto fields.
--alloc | --perf | --java-heap (for profile): restrict to a single profile type (default: auto-detect).
--no-annotations (for profile): do not add derived annotations to frames.
--pid / --timestamps (for profile): filter by process or specific sample timestamps.
--output-dir DIR (for profile): output directory for the generated pprof files.

For the inverse of convert text (turning a text-format trace back into binary) and other low-level trace helpers, see trace_processor help util.

Opening in the legacy systrace UI

If you just want to open a Perfetto trace with the legacy (Catapult) trace viewer, you can just navigate to ui.perfetto.dev, and use the "Open with legacy UI" link. This runs the trace conversion within the browser using WebAssembly and passes the converted trace seamlessly to chrome://tracing.