As a tool towards quantum error correction, additive conjucyclic codes have gained great attention. But, their algebraic structure is completely unknown over finite fields (except $${\mathbb {F}}_{q^2}$$
F
q
2
) as well as rings. In this article, we investigate the structure of additive conjucyclic codes over Galois rings $$GR(2^r,2)$$
G
R
(
2
r
,
2
)
, where $$r\ge 2$$
r
≥
2
is an integer. We develop a one-to-one correspondence between the family of additive conjucyclic codes of length n over $$GR(2^r,2)$$
G
R
(
2
r
,
2
)
and the family of linear cyclic codes of length 2n over $${\mathbb {Z}}_{2^r}$$
Z
2
r
. This correspondence helps to obtain additive conjucyclic codes over $$GR(2^r,2)$$
G
R
(
2
r
,
2
)
via known linear cyclic codes over $${\mathbb {Z}}_{2^r}$$
Z
2
r
. We prove that the trace dual $${\mathscr {C}}^{Tr}$$
C
Tr
of an additive conjucyclic code $${\mathscr {C}}$$
C
is also an additive conjucyclic code. Moreover, we derive a necessary and sufficient condition of additive conjucyclic codes to be self-dual. We further propose a technique for constructing linear cyclic codes over $${\mathbb {Z}}_{2^r}$$
Z
2
r
contained in additive conjucyclic codes over $$GR(2^r,2)$$
G
R
(
2
r
,
2
)
. Last but not least, we explicitly derive the generator matrices for these codes.