.KRA~ File Extension

Krita is a digital painting application available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It allows illustrators to create concept art, comics, animation frames, pin-ups, and other illustrations. These layer-based images are saved as KRA files.

To allow illustrators to quickly revert to the previous version of an illustration, Krita stores each illustration's last-saved version in a KRA~ file. Thus, when an illustrator saves a KRA file for the second time, Krita automatically creates an accompanying KRA~ file. This file uses the same base filename as its associated KRA file. Krita continually updates (overwrites) the KRA~ file as an illustrator saves new versions of their illustration.

How to configure KRA~ file creation

Optionally, Krita users can configure whether and how the app creates KRA~ files. To do so:

1. Open the app's Settings or Preferences menu.
2. On the General screen, select the File Handling tab.
3. If you want to stop Krita from creating KRA~ files, de-select the Create a Backup File on Saving checkbox. Otherwise, modify Krita's KRA~ file creation settings as you desire.

To open a KRA~ file, first remove the ~ from the file's extension. Then, open the file with Krita as you would any KRA file (by selecting File → Open...).

You can also view the image a KRA~ file contains with qView, a multiplatform image viewer.