thread. So you’re stuck with a DAT file (.dat file extension) that was supposed to be a WORD document and you don’t know what to do with it? Don’t worry, help is here!
You probably wonder what a DAT file is in the first place. Simply put, DAT files contain data in text or binary format.
They are typically found as winmail.dat files in email attachments, created by Microsoft Exchange Servers. But many other programs can create .dat files as well. So if the name doesn’t give it away, it’s difficult to tell whether you’re dealing with text, pictures, movies or something completely different.
Giving advice on how to open a DAT file of an unknown source is difficult because there are so many options, depending on the original source of the file. But say you were supposed to receive a WORD document and what you did receive was a document with a .dat file extension. Basically, you have two straight forward options to open and convert a DAT file into a Word doc.
First, you could try to change the file extension. In case you don’t see file extensions in Windows, go to the folder that contains your .dat file, click Tools and select Folder Options. Switch to the View tab and uncheck the option Hide extensions for known file types.
Second, you could simply try to open the .dat file with WORD or notepad or the program you suspect created the original file. To do this, right-click on the .dat file, select Open With from the menu, then select an application from the list or click Choose Program… to pick another.
Once you successfully opened the DAT file, you’re at least half way to converting that DAT file into a Word doc. But once again, there are several options.
Say we’re still dealing with a .dat file that originally was a .doc file. You changed the file extension and now that you open the file in WORD it looks fine. In fact, you already “converted” your file – congratulations!
If you managed to open with WORD, the easiest way to “convert” your file from .dat to .doc, is to save the document using WORD. And there you go. It wasn’t that hard, was it?
Now let’s get a little more serious. All the strategies above didn’t work and your file doesn’t display properly? Maybe it’s time to use a file converter. If Microsoft Outlook messed with your attachments, chances are that Winmaildat.com will get you out of the mess.
From within the Extract tab browse for the respective .dat file on your computer, send it and wait for the Results to show in the respective tab. The file size limit with this service is 5MB.
There really isn’t more to it than that. To successfully retrieve data from a .dat file or convert it to its original file format, you need to know the source or the original file type.
Is there another smart trick that I missed out on? Please share your knowledge in the comments!
