How to open NZB files

Last Updated: Sep 10, 2019

NZB files were first created on the Usenet to speed up the downloading time for files. So what exactly is an nzb file?

NZB File Structure

MessageIDs / Articles - A file on the Usenet can be divided up into several parts. These parts are called “articles” and your newsreader will recombine these articles for you once they are downloaded. Each article will have an ID number known as a message ID.
Faster with No Headers / Mulitple Message IDs - Every file has a completely unique message ID and it is from this ID that your newsreader knows which file to download. The nzb file is a multitude of message ID’s that mean that once you have imported it into your newsreader then the newsreader can download all at once. The big advantage of these nzb files is that it speeds up the process and it does this because it does not download the headers in the file.
Import and Download - Once you have your nzb file, you need to import it into your newsreader in order to open it. The newsreader will open it and download all the parts and assemble them for you. Fantastic! This saves loads of work which people used to have to do before the nzb files were invented.

The nzb file itself is a just text file (XML file) with associated message IDs.
All nzb files will have the extension .nzb
Associate .nzb extentsion with one of the NZB downloaders about to download / repair and unpack.
Almost all quality usenet newsreaders support the NZB file format