What is the SHN file format?
A .shn file is a losslessly compressed audio file encoded with the Shorten codec, developed by Tony Robinson at SoftSound Ltd in 1993. Shorten was one of the first practical lossless audio formats and dominated the concert-recording trade community through the late 1990s and early 2000s, particularly on etree.org and in Grateful Dead tape archives.
The codec uses linear prediction (differencing) followed by Rice/Golomb entropy coding. It supports arbitrary sample rates and bit depths; the most common use is 44,100 Hz 16-bit stereo CD-quality audio, typically yielding files around 200-700 MB for a full album rip.
The file begins with the 4-byte magic signature ajkg, followed by a version byte (0x02 for v2, 0x03 for v3), then header fields for channel count, block size, and LPC order. Shorten has no built-in checksum; the etree community uses companion .md5 files - MD5 sums of decoded PCM - to verify integrity.
Development ceased around 2007 with final release v3.6.1. The format has been largely superseded by FLAC (Xiph.org, 2001), which offers better compression, seek support, and native metadata. Most etree archives now dual-post .shn and FLAC. Decoding is handled by the shorten command-line tool or via plugins for Foobar2000 and Winamp.
Security & safety
RISK: LOWPure audio data; no executable code. Companion .md5 files allow integrity verification. No known exploits.
Format details
in a nutshellPrograms that open SHN files
Windows3 apps
Foobar2000
Free Install foo_input_shorten component from Hydrogenaudio; then drag .shn file into foobar2000. 
macOS1 app
Linux2 apps
Technical details
deep spec| Magic bytes | 61 6A 6B 67 (ASCII "ajkg") at offset 0 |
| Version byte | Offset 4 - 0x02 = v2, 0x03 = v3 |
| Encoding | Binary, big-endian |
| Container | Raw Shorten bitstream (no outer container or wrapper format) |
| Compression algorithm | Linear prediction (differencing) + Rice/Golomb entropy coding |
| Lossless mode | Default; near-lossless mode exists but is rarely used in practice |
| Typical sample rate | 44100 Hz (CD-quality); arbitrary rates supported by codec |
| Typical bit depth | 16-bit stereo (standard CD rip); 8-bit also supported |
| Typical file size | 200 MB - 700 MB (full CD rip at lossless quality) |
| Seek support | Limited; v3.5.1+ added seek table via companion .shn.idx file |
| Integrity verification | No built-in checksum; companion .md5 files (MD5 of decoded PCM) used by etree community |
| Metadata support | None built-in; the format has no tag fields |
| Development status | Abandoned ~2007; last release v3.6.1 |
| Primary community use | Concert bootleg trading - etree.org, Grateful Dead archive, lossless live music collections |
| Released | 1993 |
| Latest version | 3.6.1 (final release ~2007) |
| Specification | www.loc.gov |
SHN conversions
Community Q&A
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