How to read and open .DAT files in Windows

Posted on March 28, 2008 at 6:51 am

So you just received an email with an attachment that someone sent you, but the extension on the file is .DAT. What exactly is a .DAT file and how to you open .DAT files? Those are two questions I’m going to try to answer as this is an issue that I’ve seen many times in my IT career!

The first thing to understand about .DAT files is that it indicates a file that has arbitrary data. That means it’s not associated with any one particular program or application. When you see a file with a .XLS extension, you know it’s referring to an Excel file, and so on. But with .DAT files, you have to figure out how to open it yourself and it may not be the same program each time.

Image Source:http://www.hannonhill.com

The best way to open a .DAT file is to use the program that created it. However, if you’re not sure, you can always try Notepad. Now when you open it in Notepad, you may be able to recognize some of the data, but the rest will most likely be junk spewed out by the program that created it.

You’ll normally only see this file format when receiving emails with attachments. Most common programs today do not generate .DAT files and only computer programmers use these files on any kind of regular basis.

So your first step would be to ask the person who sent you the email if they know which program was used to create the file. Now if they tell you that they actually sent a picture or a document and they are not sure why it’s a .DAT file, it could be that the file extension was changed in the process of having the email routed to you.

For some strange reason, some email programs automatically change the file extension on email attachments to .DAT. So if the person sent you a picture and now it’s a .DAT file, you first need to save it to your computer and then change the file extension to JPG or GIF or PNG or whatever you think it’s supposed to be. If they sent you a Word document, change it to .DOC, etc.

You can change the file extension on a file by first going to My Computer, clicking on Tools and then Folder Options.

Next click on the View tab and then scroll down to the option “Hide extensions for known file types” and UNCHECK it. In this way, we’ll now be able to see the file extension and change it to something else.

Now simply right-click on the .DAT file and change the file extension after the dot to the desired file format.

You should also see the icon representing the file change to the appropriate program use to open that file type, i.e. Excel in the above picture.

So what do you do if you’re not sure which program it came from or what the original file extension was supposed to be? You can also try right-clicking on the file and then choosing Open With and try different programs. For example, I changed one of my Excel files to a .DAT extension and then right-clicked on it to open it with Excel and it worked!

Now I just chose Microsoft Excel from the list and Excel was able to read the file since the data was written by Excel, it just had a wrong file extension.

You can also try other programs like Windows Media Player since it will open it if it happens to be a video, MP3, or similar media format. So hopefully you are now able to open your mysterious .DAT file using one of the above mentioned methods! If not, post a comment and I will try to help! Enjoy!

[tags].dat file, open dat file, how to open a dat file, how to open a dat file, dat file extension, what is a dat file[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

176 Responses to “How to read and open .DAT files in Windows”

Madhur Kapoor said on : March 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

I always thought that DAT files were for Videos . My doubts are cleared.

akishore said on : March 28th, 2008 at 10:29 pm

Hey Madhur,

.DAT files can be video files and are a lot of times, but the format itself is for “arbitrary” data. Emails programs have a tendency to change the file extension to .DAT.

lorraine said on : April 13th, 2008 at 9:01 am

my .dat file is a video file but can’t open with windows media player and realplayer. please advise any other software allows me to watch this video file.

Julie said on : May 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 am

Opening the file is not the problem. I can’t figure out what program it was created in and have tried everything–all the instructions say use notepad–doens’t work!!

akishore said on : May 2nd, 2008 at 9:07 am

Julie, who did you get the file from? If you have any slight idea what the DAT file could have been generated from, then just try to rename the extension and see if it opens. I would try .XLS, .DOC, .AVI, .PNG, .JPG, etc etc. It’s got to be a common extension.

zoheb said on : May 12th, 2008 at 7:48 am

you’re the man!! this post was a great help….i was breaking my head in trying to download corel from the internet coz i thought it was a file made in corel. and after reading your post i just chged the extension to .jpeg and hey presto i get my file……thanks buddy for your efforts !!

Galzaga said on : May 26th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

I have a site with videos i surf often but it doesnt allow you to download the “suppoused” wmv files. Now, I play the videos in IE, then I go to settings and view files and the file is there, and of course is a video file lets say 20meg. The name of the file is usually something like this: video1.wmv#0;000;0;0;1:2;2:2. What I do is to copy that file and paste it in desktop and I get a file wich a different name, usually something like: video1[1].dat.
I tried all different kind of codecs, video inspectors, different video programs and no succes, there was no way to open those files, I hope somebody can help, thanks

mª jose said on : May 28th, 2008 at 9:20 am

me es muy dificil abrir el archivo

James Slattery said on : June 2nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm

Many thanks for your ideas on identifying a .dat file. Without your prompts I would not have been able to open the file.

Philippe said on : June 10th, 2008 at 5:20 am

Bonjour,

Si vous recevez un fichier par email dont l’attachement a ete decoupé en plusieurs fichiers .dat par exemple fichier1/2.dat + fichier2/2.dat, il suffit d’ouvrir les deux fichiers sur Notepad, de reassembler le contenu et de le sauvegarder dans un seul fichier.dat puis de l’ouvrir grace à WinZip

Philippe

alucard said on : June 18th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

disculpa pero yo tengo un juego con extencion .DAT no se puede abrir mediante las opciones q mencionaste…q puedo hacer??

terry said on : June 25th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Me ha servido de gran manera, gracias…

Paulo Neto said on : June 26th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Olá,

Achei muito interessante essa explicação sobre .dat
no entanto estou ainda com uma pequena dúvida.

Eu tinha um computador que ao receber arquivos .dat abria
os arquivos sem ser necessário descobrir que tipo de arquivo realmente era (ex. .doc, .xls, etc).

Não sei se ele tinha alguma aplicação que fazia isto, você
pode me dizer se realmente isto existe e como posso obtê-lo

Grato.

GRISELDA said on : July 8th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

mil gracias, siguiendo las indicaciones puede abrir
un archivo data sin complicaciones.

saludos

Mehdi said on : July 21st, 2008 at 12:52 am

Dear friend!

If you have a DAT file, Windows Media player and most other software on Windows can not open it. Please try the “Kmplayer” to open the DAT file. It worked for me.

thanks!

Linda Derwick said on : July 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am

my dat file came from a mac–applefile supposedly as a compatible word file–I used your suggestion and changed file extension to doc but still can’t read it in word. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Tammy Storrs said on : July 31st, 2008 at 7:23 am

I did a search on Google for how to open DAT files, and your answer is the best I have found.

thank you,

cyndi said on : August 2nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm

HELP! I got a dat file and I can’t seem to open it at all. it came through in winmail.dat

Shirley said on : August 2nd, 2008 at 10:23 pm

I am having a problem… using PSPX2..when I save and send an image its being received as DAT file yet I saved and sent it as a JPG file …must be a setting that is incorrect but cannot find it…

thanks for any help

Sandra said on : August 8th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

8-8-2008
Good Afternoon..

First thank you for your detailed
instructions regarding how to Open
up a .Dat file in Windows XP Prof.

Well, I went to My Computer, Tools
Folder Options, View and UNCHECKED
the Hidden files..
Then went back and Rt clicked on
the .Dat file..but still it will
not allow me to do a thing..
It says I can go to the Internet
maybe in a List find something
to assist me to Open this .Dat
file..
Must say, this is a tad confusing
for me, as I am so NOT Technically
inclined per say..
So if you can suggest another way
to Open the .dat file.
I haven’t tried Windows Media Player
because it isn’t Music, but a Knitting
Pattern a friend sent me..??

Thanks again.
Regards..

L White said on : August 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am

I am experiencing the same problem Cyndi is. I also received an e-mail with a winmail.dat attachement. I followed the steps and tried renaming the file so I can open it, but no luck. I just sent an e-mail to the person who sent me the attachement to ask which program was used to create the program. This wesbite was very helpful and Akishore, although I was unable to open my attachment the information you provided was very helpful and informational. You didn’t have to create this site, but you did and it is appreciated.

L White said on : August 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am

I stumbled onto this website http://www.kopf.com.br/winmail/download.php and was able to open the attachment winmail.dat. Hope this helps everyone else.

Ket said on : August 16th, 2008 at 10:46 am

I’ve tried to open the dat files for years and I couldn’t open it. They’re still well keeping on my computer and my next computer too.

They are pictures that very important to me. It’s my wedding photos.

I shot them with the digital camera. The guest who participated the event try to impress us. He download them to my computer and make it viewable by PowerDVD. They just worked like a charm.

We love it at first, but as he left, I don’t know why, we cannot open it as he demonstrated.

The pictures can still be viewed by PowerDVD but at very fast rate, less than a seconds per picture I guess, so we cannot actually view the photos.

Since we cannot print them out, I just keep them safe on my computer.

And now I am divorced, I really want to watch those photos again. I search high and low through google and run into your site.

I would be very very appreciated if you can help me.

Thanks

jefu said on : August 21st, 2008 at 8:33 am

this site was very helpful. although i wasnt able open my winmail.dat file, i did learned something from here.. i tried following the solutions you provided but it didnt work. ill just have to ask my customer to ask the person who sent that file and ask him what kind of software he used to create that file.. thanks a lot..

anm said on : August 22nd, 2008 at 4:34 am

Hi… How do you open .dat files that are archived conversation from Yahoo Messenger? i tried what u said but i didn’t work.. will appreciate ur help.. tq

Silver said on : September 2nd, 2008 at 2:22 am

@ ket: chance the file extension of the file to .psz
so instead of .dat you will have psz and will be able to open with powerdvd if im correct.

@anm: try to open with .txt

i hope this helps for you guys.

Gaiyya said on : September 16th, 2008 at 8:37 am

actually i want to open one of my yahoo messenger archives! and its in this “Video CD Movie” format or whatever and it has the .dat format. and i open it using notepad but i get a lot of gibberish!! :S heeeeellllpppppppp!?

Tom Tonks said on : September 19th, 2008 at 9:49 am

Try IrfanView. It will open many pictures and movies.

Gigi said on : September 21st, 2008 at 3:47 am

Thank you. This is very helpful.

KP said on : October 6th, 2008 at 9:44 am

downloading a setup.exe file from ITunes, saves as a .dat file and not an executable. If I change it to .exe, will i then perform the setup?
Secondly, why would it download as a .dat as opposed to a .exe in the first place?
Many thanks

Sudhir Vardhan said on : October 12th, 2008 at 6:35 am

This information was simply great. It saved me a lot of hassle of finding out what kind of file it was. I was perplexed to see the .dat extension files in my email. the sender told me to open in the fax viewer. I was unable to open the same in Window Vista. Ultimately based upon your guidance stated above i inserted the extension .jpeg and behold!!!!! the file opened. BINGO!!! BINGO !!!

jamil said on : October 19th, 2008 at 8:42 am

I have a dat file and i don’t know by which program it was created.Is there any way to open the file other than checking with different program

Esteban said on : October 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 am

Ecellent post man, I resolved this with that. Was simply amazing and easy *-* Jeje! *-* Thank you again!!

Anthony said on : October 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 pm

I have a .dat file that is part of a program how can I open that file.

Matt said on : October 31st, 2008 at 3:27 am

Ah well done.
Changed the attachment extension to .jpg, and viewed the photos without a problem.
Thanks for the excellent explanation too.
Seems my service provider has an email server that strips off the extensions and replaces them with .dat for email attachments.
Cheers!

drago said on : November 2nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm

hello
I have a .dat file downloaded from a website to unlock my iphone but i just can’t open it whit anything. it’s a program but it doesn’t want to open. can someone help me please. I’m from holland (netherlands)
thanks

chen said on : November 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

thanks for the info. i just want to know if there is a relation between DXF Files, SDNF files and DAT files?
can you explain it to me please.

Recker said on : November 11th, 2008 at 5:21 pm

I’ll say it again in English! Your advice was a great help and I’m really thankful, since I do receive files that I canb’t open from time to time, and it was usually with a dat extension. My question was just if I should leave the box “Hide ….” unchecked without any risk or if I should check it again. Thanks anyway, people like you are really godsent!

Chate said on : November 17th, 2008 at 3:18 am

I have a .dat file but it isnt a text format it is from an unknown program.Is there a way i could find out which program it is?

Garry said on : November 17th, 2008 at 11:01 pm

Hi, I received a cd that had information copied to it from MYOB13 and when I place it in my laptop, it comes up as a dat file. My computer is Windows XP, I have read your article but I am still stumped (and frustrated)my partner’s computer whom copied it for me, is Windows 98. Please help!

natalie said on : November 20th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

i restart my laptop everyday which has vista on it an i get a box pop up saying that qysmuim.exe has caused a problem an needs to close it came with 3 dat files also named qysmuim dont know where it came from… its in my user\username\appdata\local\microsoft\qysmuim.exe did a search on the web to see what qysmuim was an found nothing.. needless to say the exe an the dat files wont open an i scaned for virus an there was none.so now what? lol

Wayne said on : November 26th, 2008 at 8:01 pm

Thanks for the help. Just a side hint for everyone;
At bare minimum, if you do open a DAT file in notepad or some other text editor – often you can read in the file header what the file type is and then what you can open it with.

Good luck!!

Joel said on : December 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm

I want to open .dat file. Let me know from which application it will get opened…since it is a file which has to be filled and sent to a company

Let me know ASAP

Regards
Joel

Lisa Love said on : December 5th, 2008 at 10:48 pm

Thank you L White for your post in response to Cyndi’s problem because I was experiencing the same issue, and even though this posting itself was very helpful I still needed more help. Your post, which I C&P here: “L White said on : August 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am

I stumbled onto this website kopf.com.br/winmail/download.php and was able to open the attachment winmail.dat. Hope this helps everyone else.”

with the link was my lifesaver. Thank you so much for sharing. Hope this helps a lot of other people, too.
Happy Holidays!! (^_^)

shravanti said on : December 13th, 2008 at 11:47 am

gr8 post… it was really helpfull

jignesh said on : December 15th, 2008 at 9:25 am

Thanks very much. After changing DAT extension to pdf i can open file with adobe acrobat.

Ronald said on : December 16th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

I have a .dat file and still can’t open it. Tried renaming to .doc -NO PRIZE! Tried opening with notepad, excel, access – NO PRIZE! I tried your directions, nothing works. Any ideas?

BRUCE said on : December 17th, 2008 at 12:52 am

I have dat files created with a multitrac recording studio, the mrs1044cd by ZOOM. I copied the audio files usb02 to a folder/desktop, and although I can play them on the zoom hardware I would like to have copies on my harddrive. any tips would be cool. Bruce

sekhar said on : January 1st, 2009 at 6:17 am

I got wonderful answer to my problem. Actually I have a .dat file and still can’t open it. After reading the artcile from ur website, i opened it.

Thank u very much
Sekhar

Summer said on : January 7th, 2009 at 11:44 pm

I went to burn a video disc through Nero and somehow it has changed it into a dat file. I have tried everything and I am getting really frustrated. It will be 2 years in May, and am still trying to open it. I have my son’s birthday and my niece’s 21st birthday on there. Please help!!!

Jorge said on : January 9th, 2009 at 6:03 pm

After following your step by step instructions and applying the change in MY Computer.

I went to the folder where I stored the .dat file , I right clicked and went to properties , there I replaced the .dat with .jpg and clicked on Change….

It worked like a charm , my .dat file was now .jpg and the picture was viewable , Thank You for the information.

Ben said on : January 15th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

I have a vista, if I clicked properties and saw “opens with:(program here)” what would that mean? Should I download the file or what?

Ritesh said on : January 21st, 2009 at 1:12 am

Thanks Boss…thanks a ton…

Aisha said on : January 21st, 2009 at 6:40 am

Hey this is a great and useful post however i amk still stuck and i wonder if you can help me. you see i downloaded some DAT files from the following site ffxidats.com/list.php?c=E2. I clicked on the links to get them, they are images but they appear to be in DAT format, however, I cant seem to access them when using a PNG BMP or JPEG extension. Would you be able to help? ill be most grateful Thanks in advance.

ken said on : January 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 am

If you need to open .dat files from Yahoo Messenger try this link:

ikitek.com/products/Yahoo-Message-Archive-Decoder.html

It worked on my older YM archives from 2007

Good Luck

Dean said on : February 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 pm

I RECOMMEND TRYING TO OPEN .DAT FILES (THAT YOU KNOW ARE SAFE OF COURSE) IN INTERNET EXPLORER. IE CAN HANDLE MANY FORMATS AND ALOT OF TIMES IT WILL BE OBVIOUS WHAT PROGRAM YOU SHOULD USE TO OPEN THE FILE. BEWARE THAT .DAT FILES FROM UNKNOWN SENDERS CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR COMPUTER AND SHOULD BE HANDLED WITH CAUTION.

SORRY caps.

aytee said on : February 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm

You are my hero! THANKS

Hany Nadim said on : February 21st, 2009 at 4:54 am

I always send excel files as mail attachments, but they receive it in .DAT extension. i do not know why it changes
to a DAT file. i want the file to arrive in it’s original format Excel. pls help

Dilian said on : February 25th, 2009 at 7:53 am

I have an Icy Tower game MOD and the file format is .DAT, so how can I open it, which program must i use???

Rider said on : March 4th, 2009 at 9:33 am

what you can try also is to open it with internet explorer, It worked for me (it was an image)

Rita said on : March 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

Dear friend,

I have read your article cause I was searching a method to open my .dat file. Unfortunately this system does not work with me. I have converted this file in numerous extensions but nothing! Could you help me to solve this matter? It’s important cause is a file for working!

Thanks

Rita

Sacha said on : March 6th, 2009 at 10:46 am

i emailed myself outlook contacts, but when i recieve them they appear as attachment of .dat files. i followed your instruction on changing it to approriate application (.vcf) but when it opens all the data on the contact card is missing! PLEASE HELP!!!
not sure what i need to do to make the contact details appear with the card!

Aina said on : March 10th, 2009 at 11:27 am

I can never open .dat files in my aol account, but when I forward the email to my yahoo account, I can open the files? Tried hotmail also, but it didn’t work. For some reason yahoo is able to read the files?

carroll said on : March 13th, 2009 at 10:59 am

I just received an email with the .dat file extension at my work email (I use thunderbird). Couldn’t open it so I forwarded it to my gmail account and all the information came through no problem!

Suzanne said on : March 17th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

Your first few paragraphs saved me!! Someone sent me a huge excel spreadsheet that came through as a .dat file. Your feedback was perfect in explaining what a .dat file is, why a file might come through with that extension and how to change the settings that would allow me to change the extension. Once I did all that, no problema! It’s never a lost day when I can say I learned something new! Thank you so much!

Shevon said on : March 25th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

I am trying to open a map that is an .at5 file, can you help? Thanks

Aiv J. said on : March 30th, 2009 at 9:19 am

It’s a nice post you have there. Solved a major problem.
Thanks!

Shirl Smith said on : May 1st, 2009 at 12:27 am

I received .dat files on a CD. They were photos taken
with a digital camera and I imagine were originaly
.jpgs. I was told they were for the TV DVD player. That
didn’t work, but realplayer on my computer opens them.
Not a perfect solution but can view them one at a time
not as a slide show which I would have prefered.
Shirl

Mark said on : May 7th, 2009 at 8:09 am

For those of you with .dat video files you can’t open, do a google search for VLC media player. It can open almost anything and it’s free. I’ve been using it for years.

Mark

url if you are to lazy to search.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

brenda said on : May 7th, 2009 at 1:15 pm

I have a .dat file which shows up saying I should be able to open it using Adobe. It won’t allow me to do that. Changing the file extension doesn’t help. It just shows the file name as XXXX.pdf.dat and keeps trying to use Adobe to open it. When I changed the file extension to .gif or .bmp it still keeps the .dat also. HELP!

Misty said on : May 14th, 2009 at 2:51 pm

Hi,

My .dat files are from yahoo messenger. I accidentally, dont know how, deleted my archives, so i had to go download a recover program and the messages came up as .dat files. i dont know how to open them, does anyone know how to help me? and how do i know that they are messages or what they are?

Kang Rosil said on : May 18th, 2009 at 11:40 pm

Save the files to your drive and rename it’s extentention from dat to doc ( MS Words ). I tried it and success Thank’s…

Sunil Lal said on : May 19th, 2009 at 2:00 am

I tried all the tips. But I coudn’t open the .DAT file. Could you please help me?

Eyobee said on : May 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm

I also received .dat file on CD. Actually it’s a movie recorded by a digital camera. But i couldn’t it yet, even with real player. Would you please help with this problem. Thank you in Advance.

Eyobee!!

kent said on : May 24th, 2009 at 9:48 pm

What if the dat file is a folder? Can you still open it? How?

kavita said on : May 30th, 2009 at 2:20 am

Hello,

I have several files: .dat, .idx, .ibk, but this not any kind of video file. These are some database files. Can any one tell me how to open or see the content of these files?

sylverbull said on : June 17th, 2009 at 5:43 am

Thanks your tutorial on how to change a .DAT file to the desired file, help me a lot and I just wanted to thank you. There are lots of stuff behind the computer one does not know ….wow!!! really technical but thank heavens I can follow instructions. Goooood one pal!

sp said on : June 20th, 2009 at 12:02 am

I just saved the file to my desktop, renamed the extension to XLS and double-clicked on it to open. Worked fine!

Erin Adkinson said on : June 26th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Thank you so much! I changed the file extension on an IMPOSSIBLE .DAT file and was able to open it on the first try in .PDF format. Now I can get my client invoice to him today as promised! You saved the weekend!

Tim Mcdonald said on : June 29th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

Hi,

I’ve been trying to play a .dat file all day. Its from a VCD but the computer doesn’t recognize it. I’ve tried open with media player too, but it says cannot play this file type… any more idea?

Sue said on : July 12th, 2009 at 2:42 am

I want to uninstall a game but the only file in the ‘uninstall’ folder is a .dat file which I can’t open. I don’t want to keep the game in my com as it takes up a lot of space. Can you give me any advice?

Jo C said on : July 12th, 2009 at 1:34 pm

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!! Your suggestions saved the day!

Jim Hammond said on : July 16th, 2009 at 5:46 pm

Thanks for the help! I’m putting a food & wine article to bed, but needed a chef’s recipe to complete it and it arrived in .dat format. Used your info, guessed it was in .doc and was right. Submission done in time, phew!

Fran said on : July 17th, 2009 at 5:35 am

I tried to open some archived messages from yahoo messenger that was sent in an email as an attachment.. tried changing from dat and will still not allow me to read. Any sugggestions?

James said on : July 24th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

Thanks for your help. This post was a great one. I can now open DAT files.

Pat said on : August 4th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

Thanks! A colleague had forwarded two files with “.dat” — interestingly, two others came through as “.doc”.

It turned out one was a .doc and one was .xls, and we were all able to view these files.

Thanks again.

Pat

concon said on : August 11th, 2009 at 4:25 am

Hi! I need my old chats but when i opened it, it is a DAT file and the icon is for my media player! I tried all kind of ways to covert it to txt, doc, xls. It is a messages archive from my past chats that I need to present to the US embassy of chats with my husband!! Pls help!!!!

GwB said on : August 14th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

Here’s what I did. I downloaded a documentary consisting of a few WINRAR files. When I extracted these WINRAR files, it turned out to be a .DAT file which could not be recognized by Windows Media Player. Then I started VLC player and when opening the file I selected “All Files(*)” in “Files of Type”. No problem whatsoever…

Dee said on : August 23rd, 2009 at 3:09 am

This is really helpful. My boss was impressed with me!

Thanks a lot.

Cheers!

siete uno said on : August 24th, 2009 at 3:16 am

hi! I just tried to change a .dat file to .txt, .doc, .excel, .mp3 and to any other known file types. unfortunately, none of them worked.

what im actually tring to convert are the messages from my YM Archives. They are all in .dat form.

I can open the files using Yahoo Messengers Archive but I am trying to convert them to word files so i can just create a 1 page document for the conversations that i had.

Is it possible?

Hope I made some sense in my query.

Thank you,

siete uno

vish said on : August 30th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

Hi,

First of all thanks for such useful information. ‘index.dat’ file which gets created in ‘Temporary Internet Files’ folder contains the names and even the dates of your first visits to many pages. I tried to open it with different progs like notepad, wordpad, word, excel….but i am not able to read the content…if you find any solution, email me at “vish2686@yahoo.in”

Thanks.

Margaret Swank said on : September 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm

Help. A good friend sent lots of photos via email. I downloaded them, sent them to windows media player. When I tried viewing them, a message pops up to tell me; the selected files has a extension (.zip) that is not recognized by windows media player, but might still be able to open it, then I check that box,and get another message. In other words, it won’t open it. I have windows vista.

james said on : September 14th, 2009 at 1:27 am

try VLC player…

Ananta C said on : September 16th, 2009 at 9:57 am

In our company we generate .dat files with inhouse application, I had fixed strange problem. I can open those .dat file in excel by browsing file –> open , but not when I double click ( after associating to open always open in excel ). below is solution

open folder option —>file types — dat and click advanced button ( some times you may have restore button, click restore and you will get advanced )

in advanced – select open — edit and paste the path of “x:….\excel.exe” /e and click ok/apply

eg : “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE” /e

boom.. it should work

Elizabeth said on : September 25th, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Thanks very much for excellent explanation and solution. I changed the name to extension .jpg and could view and save the picture. Can it be caused by the person sending the attachment using plain text?

Luke Alexander said on : September 30th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Thanks for sharing and posting your article here. This one is a great help. I had no clue how to open a .DAT file.

S Murthy said on : October 6th, 2009 at 9:17 am

I have been using Windows outlook 2007 after upgrading from 2003. Now all files that i send are converted to .DAT files. This is creating problems for my clients as I need to transfer various kinds of data at a time and cannot really specify the file type everytime. Is there some way to configure outlook to send mails as is without converting it. Thanks

JIM said on : October 24th, 2009 at 3:46 am

I was sent a pdf file whcih converted to a dat file. I changed the file extension to pdf, but it would not open

Ellie said on : October 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

I exported my earthlink messages in folders to a flash drive in anticipation of setting up a new vista machine. The file is there as a .DAT and now I can’t export it to the new machine. Any suggestions?

Jeff said on : October 29th, 2009 at 2:20 am

Hi,

my .dat file is a map related file.(map for GPS unit) which program should i use to open it?

Thanks.

andrei said on : October 31st, 2009 at 1:28 pm

video formats: avi mp4 mpeg mpg flv

andrei said on : October 31st, 2009 at 1:25 pm

hey, this post is great. I know a litle about this and here it goes:

For video files even those pictures made for powerdvd should open with vlc and is really nice now(much improved.)

For pictures you should try more endings: .jpg .jpeg .png .iff .tiff. it all depends where it came from. now days pictures from the internet come as png. if is a scan chances are it is an tiff or a ttf. normal pictures ussually store as jpg or jpeg, espeacially from everyday camera on the market. very few have specific attributes, I came across a jvc once with a jvp format but I think it only goes for the copycat’s on the market (the really cheap chinese trickery products.)

If it is from a game it is deffinetly in their own language and not sure at all if can be open by anything. if notepad doesn’t see just blocks and squares then it is probably encripted.

For messenger (yahoo) files u can go to http://www.cnet.com and see what is around for decoding there are several programs there and most are free or free period trial. sa decode and don’t forget to save in something else.

For the rest I saw a lot of good answers. and usualy just changing the attribute should work (careful now cause docx is way different then doc, and so forth xls, and ppt). for the pictures slides u can try pps or ppt. even mp3 work like that some times. and most recent video format on the net is flv. I think this is about everything. hope it helps.

So remember if u can’t see it in notepad it is probably encrypted and very few programs can decrypt it directly (vlc, ie, irfanview for pics, and if I remember correctly PowerISO for cd images or magic iso).

good luck!!!

S Mirza said on : November 4th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

Worked perfect for me! Thanks

Nadeem Ahammad said on : November 10th, 2009 at 4:35 am

Hi I changed the file to different formats but it wouldn’t open…I tried pdf, xls, doc, jpg, png, gif, pdf but it couldn’t be opened! plz some more examples to open .DAT files…thanks..Nadeemdg

Ricardo said on : November 17th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

Thanks for your help. I was able to open it with Word after learning from the sender that she had created it with that program although on a Mac. I wonder if it has anything to do with that? Thanks again.

Jason said on : December 8th, 2009 at 10:15 am

Trying to open a .dat file that is a backup of the yahoo im archive. Tried all of the suggestions above to no avail. Please advise with more options. Thanks.

Shell said on : December 17th, 2009 at 6:03 pm

I was sent a christmas card in an e-mail and it came as a DAT file I searched and found this site :

http://www.winmaildat.com/

and it opens the .DAT file for you..worked and was easy!

Fabiola said on : December 22nd, 2009 at 9:06 am

Thanks so much for this article! It really helped!

chethan said on : December 25th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

Thank you so much for clearing .DAT problem

christian said on : December 26th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

very awesome post!!! This really helped me!!! Thanks!

Thanks said on : January 4th, 2010 at 3:44 pm

Thanks for your help I was able to open a DAT file someone sent me.

Marc said on : January 7th, 2010 at 3:16 pm

What the hell is arbitrary data? Is that like a non-sequitur? Why doesn’t the document tell you what you need to open it instead of making you “figure it out”.

Who the hell came up with this?

Make it go away, NOW

Why would it turn an MS Word Document into a .DAT file?

pinpin_huang said on : January 8th, 2010 at 8:46 am

it works!! thx for the info.. +1 knowledge hehe

be1st said on : January 12th, 2010 at 12:16 pm

How can i open someone elses Yahoo Messenger archive files?

mayukh said on : January 13th, 2010 at 3:28 am

Thanks mate. I was able to convert my .dat video files into workable mpg files for my office presentations. thanks again

Isabel said on : January 13th, 2010 at 8:36 pm

This was really helpful, however my problem is someone sent me a large file through PDF which came through as 5 smaller DAT files. When I converted them to PDF it tells me they haven’t been decoded correctly. Is there anyway I can view them, or more importantly forward them on knowing they can be viewed?

neil said on : January 13th, 2010 at 11:23 pm

just right click, save as, delete the dat suffix and it should leave a recognizable one such as a jpeg. for example- 001.jpeg.dat should be saved as or renamed as 001.jpeg. thats my experience.

Selim said on : January 16th, 2010 at 1:39 am

If it’s a data file then try to open it by dragging it to Notepad. If it’s a media file then you should try VLC player.

Pardeep said on : January 16th, 2010 at 9:42 am

There’s always a .dat file in the CONTENT 1E.5 folder inside the Temporary internet files folder. What do you open that with??

Rohit2 said on : February 1st, 2010 at 7:44 am

I have a file called autorun.dat that my game FIFA10 requires, but it is not working. What extension do I need to change the file to?

james said on : February 1st, 2010 at 1:08 pm

Thanks. Two years after your posting and it is still proving very helpful! I just opened a DAT file as a JPG with ease. Thanks again.

bum said on : February 22nd, 2010 at 8:57 am

i’ve just installed command n conquer 4. but then i dont like it. so i want to uninstall it. but there is an error during uninstalling. it appears that autorun.dat is missing. whaat should i do??

Mali said on : February 24th, 2010 at 3:23 am

I have tried to use Intenet Explorer and it worked well!

Thanks for the suggestions though!

Prashant Kadam said on : March 2nd, 2010 at 11:56 pm

I think .dat file may be jpeg file compacted in dat. If you try to open in winmail reader it might be open. good luck.

ankit said on : March 4th, 2010 at 2:18 am

Thanks for the article! I didn’t know what a .DAT file was, but your post really helped me figure it out. Thanks!

melissa said on : March 8th, 2010 at 6:56 am

I have this mac video that was sent to me through my sister and i can not open it on a PC the title of the file is

Cadeau Yoel.rcproject.zip
3887 Ko Télécharger

Let me know how can i open it . It is a .DAT file when I see it on the Mac.

thks in adavnce

Melissa

Anit said on : March 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pm

I have tried all known extensions, but the file will not open. In Notepad, it’s some kind of unknown font and I have tried changing font, but it does not work. What to do?

ted said on : March 11th, 2010 at 1:24 pm

Opened in notpad. Its a pdf file mislabled.

Simple solution to what could have been a headache.
Thank you.

Richard said on : March 13th, 2010 at 12:29 pm

I’ve got a ton of .dat files on my computer – which is getting so slow. Can I just delete them all or will I get in trouble?

Sally said on : March 15th, 2010 at 7:57 am

That was really helpful – I managed to open the .DAT files. thank you very much!

kls said on : March 15th, 2010 at 8:15 am

i just submitted an online application and i need to submit a print on the appointment date. But the submitted copy is saved in my computer in .dat format. I am not being able to open it even if i change the extension to doc or jpeg. could you suggest me how can i open this file and print it?

Mike said on : March 17th, 2010 at 6:53 am

Hi, I have a set of DAT files that I need to restore. I used the File Transfer Wizard which created a number of 2GB DAT files. My concern is that each DAT files holds a number of different files (.mpg, .doc, .xls) so I can’t just change the extension. Any ideas of how I could restore these as the Wizard is not being helpful at all…

Thank you

Dave said on : March 18th, 2010 at 9:34 pm

DAT files are related to digital storage media. This would be more likely to be an issue on the target computer relating to file associations.

Steven said on : March 20th, 2010 at 9:53 am

DAT files that accompany emails are usually created due to using Microsoft Outlook and then trying to open the email on a non-microsoft plaftform. One suggestion is to check such emails using microsoft outlook.

Yukia said on : March 23rd, 2010 at 4:18 am

I got a .dat file on my pc, I opened it in notepad and it had some english as well as some “I”s but nothing else, is there a specific type of editor I need to view it?

Viv said on : April 5th, 2010 at 7:35 pm

I found your information quite helpful especially noting it could be a JPG. The file was AC.DAT looked up your info opened it with Microsoft Office Picture Manager and it opened with the scanned document so that I could print it off. So good!!

jamal said on : April 9th, 2010 at 7:39 am

actually i want to open one of my yahoo messenger archives. It is in .DAT format.

Plz help me i dont know how to open this file, i tried my best but its not opening, soo i need your help!

thanks,

Jamal ahmed

Laurie Olsen said on : April 12th, 2010 at 7:47 pm

It worked on my DAT file! Thank you so much.

Helpneedy said on : April 13th, 2010 at 12:47 am

PLZ HELP ME!!!!!!!! I have found my chat history in the form of .DAT files. I’m talkin about SKYPE CHAT HISTORY here… can anyone tell me how to open them in a readable format? i tried everythin above and still it wont work. Note pad only shows encoded stuff…. PLZ HELP!!!!!

Hilary Pogson said on : April 19th, 2010 at 6:31 am

Thank so much for your advice it worked! I was sent some pictures on a .dat file but I’ve saved them as jpg and I can now view them.

Hil

Mindaugas said on : April 21st, 2010 at 3:57 am

Thank you very much!!! I was trying to change it to JPG, PNG, GIF and finally on PDF it worked out!

Karen said on : April 26th, 2010 at 1:35 pm

I was not familiar with .DAT files and an email program changed my Excel file to a dat file which I could not open. I knew I needed to change the file type back to xls but was not sure how to get to it. Your instructions on how to “see” the file types and change it saved me. Thank you!!!

Philippines said on : May 3rd, 2010 at 1:05 am

Thank you so much!!!

NOW IT WORKED, ha ha ha! using klm player for any media file,

Thanks,

Jeroen said on : May 3rd, 2010 at 4:38 am

But what if i want to open a sonic riders (PC) .DAT file? cuz i want to edit Shadow’s colours and i dont know how…HELP ME PLEASE!!!

Carin said on : May 4th, 2010 at 2:06 am

Hi!

I have a question about opening the .dat file in excel. i can open the file ok and read the data, the only problem is that all the data on one row is in the same colum (instead of in 5 separate boxes) which makes it kind of hard to use the data for calculations… is there an easy way to fix this so that the data is in separate boxes? (right now the data from the original boxes are separated with just a space)

Hopa someone has an answer for me!

Rachel said on : May 18th, 2010 at 3:53 pm

This post was fantastic, thank you so much! I had no idea you could just change file types that easily.

sanjay said on : May 19th, 2010 at 7:01 am

thank you…i didnt know it was that simple…i guess you made it sound simple….

Nick0824 said on : May 19th, 2010 at 11:59 pm

Downloaded a database file of records supposedly in ASCII format for SPSS. Format is similar to EXCEL Files and can be used in EXCEL worksheet. File appeared as .DAT. Every time I try to open it as you suggested, I receive a message that the file is in use and cannot be opened. Any ideas on why I am getting this message and how to fix it would be appreciated!

vinayakam said on : May 22nd, 2010 at 5:51 am

i have a lot difficulties while try to open .dat files. my pc shows many files as cannot open. now am able to change their names and open thru media player,vlc,and so on. your suggesion is really superb! thanks s lot.

Viswa said on : May 23rd, 2010 at 11:41 pm

Hai… Your reply really helped me… urs is the best found answer.. thanks..

Carol said on : May 25th, 2010 at 3:05 am

Thank you for this! Simple and effective explanation.

I just found your website and it went straight to my bookmarks!

Rob said on : June 8th, 2010 at 10:35 am

Thanks a ton. you helped me solve my .dat file problem. Couldn’t have done it without ya.

hasan said on : June 10th, 2010 at 8:32 am

my .dat extention file for video is not opening with any media player.What can I do for opening those video file

rama said on : June 14th, 2010 at 12:04 pm

Hi, I want to open a .dat file that I got in an email. I followed your instructions, but it’s not working. I went to Tools, Options and show hidden file extensions and then changed the ending to Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Notepad, Wordpad, JPG, AVI, but nothing is working. I cannot read the DAT file. Please help me.

Joe Don said on : June 16th, 2010 at 9:55 am

Got a .dat file with an attachment drafted in Word 1973 -2003. I am using MS Office 2000 Small Business. Followed your very clear instruction. Changed the .dat to .doc and got unintelligibe characters. Any suggestions?

Kathy said on : June 22nd, 2010 at 4:58 am

I have just been struggling to do the same, and finally it worked after a lot of failed attempts to change the .dat to .doc. What I did was:
- right-click on the file name as stored in the folder
- go to ‘Properties’ (the ‘General’ tab)
- click on ‘Change’ and select Word
- click OK
- open the file, which will now have a .doc extension.

This worked for some reason, while manually changing the extension and/or using ‘open with’ didn’t.

Joe Don said on : June 22nd, 2010 at 1:24 pm

Kathy, As you suggested, I saved the winmail.dat to a folder, right clicked , selected properties and got “The properties for this item are not available.” Couldn’t get to “general” tab to click on Change.

Thx. I’ll just have to keep trying.

ramesh said on : June 24th, 2010 at 8:29 pm

Thanks. It’s working.

Aman Rana said on : June 30th, 2010 at 11:33 pm

Really very nice site (post)…on opening DAT files…

lukre said on : July 4th, 2010 at 4:29 am

I needed to open a .DAT file to translate something sent to me and you really saved me! thanks a lot!!!

dhana said on : July 5th, 2010 at 1:06 am

My friend’s windows corrupted, so I removed the hard disk and installed in another computer to retrieve data. But all the data were in .DAT file which I could not be able to open in any programs as there were too many types of files in the HDD. How do I open the .dat file so that I can delete unwanted files and save the important data before reformatting the HDD.

Rakesh said on : July 6th, 2010 at 2:18 pm

Hi.

I have one software module which accepts only .DAT files (Images taken from a specific camera). Now, I want to open another images with same module. I converted JPG and TIF files to .DAT, but it still shows “invalid file format.” Is there any generic reader for .DAT files?

Nicole said on : July 8th, 2010 at 11:21 pm

This is really helpful, but I can’t figure out what type of file it’s supposed to be. I have a CD I burned 5 years ago (when I was only 10) and it was supposedly supposed to be a bunch of stuff from Teen Titans (a TV show I loved). I’ve tried all the different extensions I would have used at the time (.gif, .jpg, .bmp, .doc, .wmv, etc.), but I still can’t figure it out. The odd thing is that when I first put my disc in, it says it’s a video disc, so I’m thinking it’s supposed to be some sort of video.

Any ideas? If so, please email them to me!

beti said on : July 10th, 2010 at 4:13 am

# Helpneedy said on : April 13th, 2010 at 12:47 am

“PLZ HELP ME!!!!!!!! I have found my chat history in the form of .DAT files. I’m talkin about SKYPE CHAT HISTORY here… can anyone tell me how to open them in a readable format? i tried everythin above and still it wont work. Note pad only shows encoded stuff…. PLZ HELP!!!!! ”

I have the same question. Can anybody help?!

Liz? said on : July 13th, 2010 at 6:24 pm

I downloaded a bunch of notes from Outlook and wanted to open them in Excel. Can that be done?

Asparuh said on : July 20th, 2010 at 12:34 am

It worked. I changed the file format .dat to .doc, and, as I was expecting, the document opened perfectly with Word.

Regards!

Hugh said on : July 21st, 2010 at 3:46 am

Many thanks for the advice. It was invaluable!!

srinath said on : July 27th, 2010 at 4:23 am

This is just to say thanks for the tip provided. I was able to open the .dat file.

Sandi Parks said on : July 29th, 2010 at 5:26 am

How to open a .dat file received as an email attachment: I save the file to my desktop and open it with Internet Explorer.

Kiran said on : July 29th, 2010 at 10:03 am

I am trying to edit a game file with the extension .DAT and I have searched everywhere on the internet but can’t find anything. I want to edit the .DAT file to customize the game to have more lives, more points, etc.

Can anyone help?

Jorma Smith said on : July 31st, 2010 at 10:31 am

I have a .dat file from a game. The file is about 300 megabytes and, if I try to open it with Notepad or Word, the programs always crash, maybe because the file is so big. Is there any way I can open that file?

Audrey Tromp said on : September 7th, 2010 at 1:32 am

This is an awesome site and the above explanation you gave is what I have been looking for for a very long time so because of this, I have a question that I pray you can help me with … Here we go!

I have just purchased Corel PSP Photo X3 and I absolutely hate it! It was installed on my computer, worked okay for only a week and then just bombed out. I click on the icon, it goes into the program for a split second and the disappears. Our computer guy has tried everything but nothing is working and I cannot read any of the graphic files that I need to make my cards from. We have uninstalled and reinstalled 11 times and nothing is working!!!!

Is there a solution or better still is there a program that I can downbload to enable me to read these PSP files and delete Corel completely.

If you can answer this question, I will be dumbstruck because nobody else is able to help me.

Thanks for a great site which I have added to my favorites and forwarded to my friends.

Hugs

Audrey

Aaron said on : September 11th, 2010 at 7:15 pm

Excellent guide on this, for those people asking about autorun.dat files and modifying .dat files that come with software, these files are not meant to be viewed except by the software and editing these files can cause major problems with your program.

One of the best ways to think about those type of .dat files is to think about secret codes used by military etc.

Monika said on : November 4th, 2010 at 7:29 pm

hey i cannot open this .dat file. I have tried a lot to open it but i think its windows media player but it makes weird noises so please let me know if you can do anything. i have provided you my email so just contact me via that so that i can send you that attachment!! please help me asap! thnx

seha said on : November 8th, 2010 at 4:00 am

Hi,
I have tried changing my CHAT MESSAGES archives to .doc, .txt, .pdf etc, but NOTHING MENTIONED here for CHAT MESSAGES ARCHIVES works!

Others have also pasted the same query, but only for this i have not been able to find a solution. This is really very important for me.

Please do help. Will be grateful.

christina said on : July 19th, 2011 at 6:02 am

great help! thank u

How to read and open .DAT files in Windows

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