Open JSON File

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a format used to store structured data in JavaScript derived data format. JSON was designed by Douglas Crockford while his work in State Software. JSON at that time was designed to exchange application state information between web application and back-end server.

At this time there are multiple ways how JSON files are used. This includes:

Configuration files. Many server-based JavaScript applications like node.js, reactJS and others use JSON files to store configuration information.
Data storage. NoSQL database engines like MongoDB use JSON to store structured data in the database.
Application state and notifications. Web applications use JSON to deliver notifications to a server or to download web application state.

JSON is a plain text file format. It also has a fairly straightforward format which could be interpreted by a human if JSON file is opened in a text editor. For example, JSON configuration files could be easily modified and saved back without use of a special software. So, if you have a JSON file which is a configuration file for one of your applications, you can try changing it. When doing this make sure that you don’t break formatting of the JSON file since any error in formatting will cause an application to fail during JSON file loading.

It is still recommended to use an application which produced JSON file to edit it, since there could be a certain formatting in JSON which application expects. For example, certain PC games store settings in JSON file. Typically, these settings could be changed inside the game, but sometimes game developers also provide a tool which can edit settings and save them in the correct format.

JSON files are transferred in e-mail and via internet network connections using application/json mime type. Since JSON is a plain text format with many repeating words and/or numbers it is easily compressible by popular compression algorithms.

Open JSON file in Windows OS

If you know the application which uses that particular JSON file use it to open it
If you don't know which application uses JSON file try opening JSON file with JSON or text editor to see what is inside
You can use UltraEdit, Visual Studio Code, JSON Viewer
If the JSON file in question was downloaded from the web application you may need to refer to that application manual to correctly process it