# How to open dat file



## kennyy (Mar 9, 2006)

Hi,

I just bought imac g5 yesterday and i was window user for many many years so i'm completely new to mac!!  I'm having problem to open dat file. 
I want to open a file called "AllGB18030-PinYinPlugin.dat". Before i have install a program called VLC and all the dat file will open by this program and VLC is for movies. So what program is mac originally support .dat? please help me out. I will appricate it! cheers

Kenny


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Mar 9, 2006)

.DAT can be anything -- what exact kind of file is it?  What application was it created with?  Is it a binary or text file?

The point is that many, many, many programs use files with the extension of ".dat" -- and each implementation is different.  I've seen plain-text .dat files, binary .dat files, and completely screwy .dat files, each with a unique format.


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## MacDieHeart (Mar 9, 2006)

that looks like a Chinese language plugin file. I would check to see what programs you might have installed that would make use of this file and load or try to open with it.


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## kennyy (Mar 9, 2006)

yes it is chinese input plugin file. That file is originally from mac. Actually my question is what is the defualt application for mac to open .dat file? thanks again


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## ra3ndy (Mar 9, 2006)

As ElDiablo stated, there are MANY programs that use .dat files.  There IS no default App for opening .dat files.


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## MisterMe (Mar 9, 2006)

kennyy said:
			
		

> ...
> I want to open a file called "AllGB18030-PinYinPlugin.dat"...


*Kenny*, my advice to you is to leave that file alone.


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## kennyy (Mar 9, 2006)

i already sort it out. What i did is , just go to add plug in, so i don't have to open the file


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## lebedunski (Dec 15, 2007)

kennyy said:


> Hi,
> 
> I just bought imac g5 yesterday and i was window user for many many years so i'm completely new to mac!!  I'm having problem to open dat file.
> I want to open a file called "AllGB18030-PinYinPlugin.dat". Before i have install a program called VLC and all the dat file will open by this program and VLC is for movies. So what program is mac originally support .dat? please help me out. I will appricate it! cheers
> ...



1. Make a copy of your any.dat file somewhere on your desktop or HD or SD-card or wherever.
2. Change the extension of the copied file; make it, instead of ".dat", ".jpg" or ".txt" or just keep play with the file extensions.
3. Try to open the renamed file with any of your applications - Acrobat, Word, Internet Browsers, Photoshop - any.
4. Good luck


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## Mike Van Horn (Jun 18, 2009)

I tried changing the .dat to .ppt (since I know it's a power point), but this didn't work. I notice there are downloadable converters, but these may be only for Windows, since they wouldn't even download to my imac OS 10.5 (pre-Intel). 

So I asked the sender to resend as ppt. But is there any downloadable .dat converter for the Mac?

mvh


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Jun 18, 2009)

.DAT is a generic extension that can encapsulate many kinds of data.  In fact, the .DAT extension is short for "data" -- and "data" can be anything, depending on what program originally created the .DAT file.  I know of at least three different programs that use the .DAT extension (all for different kinds of files), none of which are PowerPoint.

There is no generic "DAT" converter program.  The file is what it is.

If you would like your senders to be able to send you files that don't get "mangled" in the email process, kindly ask them to zip the files (zipping files is built-in to Mac OS X and Windows XP SP2+) and send them to you that way.  Then, just unzip them on your side.

But as for your .DAT problem, I think you're chasing a dead-end.  There is no "converter" software, and changing the extension doesn't change what's stored inside the file... you can't change a JPEG to a GIF by renaming a file called "picture.jpg" to "picture.gif," and the same goes for .DAT files.


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## Mike Van Horn (Jun 18, 2009)

Thanks, ElDiablo

So why do people use .dat -- esp. if they know it causes trouble for others opening it? 

mvh


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Jun 18, 2009)

That's a question for the person that sent you the file.

.DAT is used by _programs_, not people.  Many programs store data in .DAT files that is, in turn, used by the program -- or possibly files that a user creates with that program.

Is the file you received, perchance, named "WINMAIL.DAT?"


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## Mike Van Horn (Jun 18, 2009)

Yes, exactly! "winmail.dat." 

So I know that this guy is trying to send me a power point presentation. He said it was large, so he was breaking it up in three pieces "so they won't get stuck in transmission." (But there was only one attachment.)

mvh


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Jun 18, 2009)

WINMAIL.DAT files typically come from Outlook users on Windows machines.  It is due to the way the sender is sending you an email; rather, in the format the sender is sending the email.  People like to do silly things with email, like add HTML formatting or rich-text formatting to the body of their email, foregoing plain-text (good ol' text, no bold, no italic, no colors -- just the words the sender wants you to read) for something much more complicated and unpredictable.  Here's an older, but still relevant article on the WINMAIL.DAT problem:

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~jbenson/resource/winmail.htm

My bet is that your sender is trying to do fancy things to their email -- add color to it, a background image, use a different font (death to Comic Sans!), or something equally complicated and detracting from the actual _content_ of the email.  Perhaps they have a ridiculous signature with a picture logo in it, and when you get emails from them, the signature is typically longer than the content of the email... they're not sending "Prius" emails -- they're clogging the intertubes with "Hummer" emails.

I use the rule of thumb that someone who is trying to "glitz up" their email messages by the aforementioned methods is trying to hide deficiencies in the actual words and sentences that the whole email is about.    Kind of like old men driving expensive sports cars, if you know what I mean.

Instruct the sender to turn off rich-text and/or HTML formatting when they send you emails, and re-send the email.  Barring that, have the sender simply "zip" the whole Powerpoint presentation, then send you the zipped file.  Barring that, have him/her upload the Powerpoint presentation to a place like  http://www.uploading.com/ so that he/she can just email you a like to download the file.


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## fryke (Jun 19, 2009)

Most of those people, though, are not *aware* they're "doing it". They simply chose the default behaviour or are asked to use a template as per company standard etc., so they don't have complete control over how the e-mail is formatted.


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## Satcomer (Jun 19, 2009)

Well there is the product called Letter opener that might help.


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## Greg_Reez (Jun 19, 2009)

I'm constantly receiving files from clients, and I get winmail.dat attachments through email from only a certain few. Rather than bother them I did research on my own a few months ago.

I downloaded this program that extracts the files from the .dat attachment. Works great, and sometimes the .dat file is hiding several files in it.

For me it works everytime.


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## Mike Van Horn (Jun 22, 2009)

Thanks, ElDiablo, for the suggestion to use "Uploading.com." It worked just fine.

However, one warning to others: the site has the most obnoxious, obtrusive ads I've ever encountered, including an audio voice that kept talking to me even after I closed the window, and a pop up ad that put a dozen identical copies on my desktop so that whenever I closed one, there'd be another! They cut right through the Firefox defenses.

mvh


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## lbj (Jun 22, 2009)

That does NOT sound like the type of site I would ever want to utilize personally, and certainly not advertise to my friends, family, or colleagues!

That's porn site behavior...or so I have been told.


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## maccamac (Oct 19, 2010)

long time but here goes anyway ....

I've had luck opening various and sundry DAT files with BBEdit 9.1.1 (2328).

my current problem is that Hostal is no longer allowing me to edit the hostal.dat file via the application itself -- won't recognize the Admin User password. Now I hafta go into the hostal.dat file using bbedit ... not sure what happened but I'm still on Tiger/ppc & it's going wacko (again & again & again .... ad infinitum) even w/ a recent archive and reinstall....sigh.

fyi & fwiw hope this helps the next person w/ a dat file conundrum.

cheers!


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## MysticFaze (Jan 10, 2016)

You're not supposed to open .dat files on Apple products, for most of them. You can open it with TextEdit, but it will open something like this:






like random chars:

∆˙˙ß˙ÔÒÓÒˆÓÎ©¥©†¥∂©¨¥©˙Ω˙¨˚¥ˆˇ‰£´∞®§∞´∞¢∑´∂ƒ¨˚∆˙ß∫∆

Otherwise, I found this opener called Letter Opener Lite


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