An Apple Disk Image. This is a digital reconstruction of a physical disc used to distribute software on macOS. It acts as a virtual folder that "mounts" to your desktop.
This is a reverse but less common process. Tools like dmg2ios attempt to convert a Mac DMG into an iOS IPA, but this is technically complex and rarely works for mainstream apps because of fundamental differences in the operating systems. ipa to dmg
This method requires a Mac computer. You will use built-in macOS tools (Terminal and Disk Utility) or a combination of file extraction tools. An Apple Disk Image
An archive file containing compressed data for iOS, iPadOS, or watchOS applications. It is built specifically for ARM architecture (Apple Silicon) and relies on iOS-specific touch frameworks. ipa to dmg