What is a XMIND file
XMIND files are exclusively associated with an application used for brainstorming and mind mapping. It’s called XMind as well. The file contains workbooks that have been created using this application. The workbooks themselves can contain several sheets, not only a single one, that can all contain different graphics and diagrams to represent a brainstorming meeting or session. In addition to workbooks, XMIND files can also contain business diagrams and other diagrams such as charts, work schemes, and more. Before XMIND, the XMind application used a file format with the XMAP extension.
Workbooks saved as XMIND files are actually compressed files. For the compression, the Zip compression method was used. Thus, archiving programs such as 7-Zip, WinZip or WinRAR can easily decompress XMIND files. In order to do so, the file extension has to be renamed from “.xmind” to “.zip”. This gives insight on how the information and data inside the (formerly) XMIND file are stored. Upon decompressing, the information is displayed as a mixture of XML and JPG files. These can be edited or viewed easily with the according programs. Afterward, the files can simply be archived into a ZIP file again. Once the file extension is renamed to resemble the XMIND file again, it can be used as intended as a workbook again.
Here's a small, but not exhaustive list of programs that can open XMIND documents:
- Xmind (Windows, Mac & Linux)
- Seavus iMindQ (Windows, Mac & iOS)
