Extract text from Flight Simulator or CogLab files (CGL)
To convert CGL data files to another format, you need Microsoft Flight Simulator or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Application Data File" file type, you need software like Microsoft Flight Simulator or a similar tool.
The .CGL file extension serves multiple distinct purposes across different software environments. Primarily, it is a proprietary scenery data file used by Microsoft Flight Simulator to store geographic terrain information. Secondly, Cengage Learning CogLab uses .CGL files to save cognitive psychology experiment data via Java. Additionally, some dashcams use .CGL files to store video thumbnails (which are actually standard PNG images), and the Telegram messenger uses them to cache temporary video files (which are actually standard MP4 videos).
Users often want to convert .CGL files to recover cached media or access raw data. However, the game and experiment formats are highly restrictive. They are proprietary, closed binary files designed to prevent tampering and restrict usage to their specific parent applications. They lack native support in standard operating systems and require the original software to open. If your file is a media cache, the best target formats are MP4 for video or PNG for images, as nothing is lost in the process. Converting MSFS or CogLab files to standard document formats is usually impossible because they are compiled binary data.
Because these data files are closed and proprietary, standard online converters fail to process them. Often only the original software can properly read or export the data. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format like an MP4 video or PNG image, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CGL file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted INO, GVP, FLAGS and GAU files.
If you want to convert CGL file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use Microsoft Flight Simulator or similar software from the "Game & Experiment Data Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to CGL, try Microsoft Flight Simulator or another comparable tool in the "Game & Experiment Data Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our CGL converter.