Extract text from HOL files
To convert your HOL file to another format, you need Microsoft Outlook or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Calendar Configuration File" file type, you need software like Microsoft Outlook or a similar tool.
A .HOL file is a specialized text-based data file utilized primarily by Microsoft Outlook to batch-import holidays into the user's calendar. Internally, the file uses a simple structure reminiscent of INI files, organizing events under bracketed headers (e.g., [United States]) followed by the holiday name and date. While efficient for the internal Outlook import wizard, the .HOL format is largely proprietary in function and lacks native support in modern web-based calendars like Google Calendar or Apple Calendar.
Users often deal with issues when trying to share these holiday lists across different platforms or when migrating away from legacy Outlook installations. Because the file is typically encoded in UTF-16 and relies on a strict syntax (Subject, yyyy/mm/dd), manual editing in Notepad++ is error-prone and opening it directly often results in unreadable text or a prompt to install Outlook. To make this data usable elsewhere, the best approach is to convert the .HOL file to ICS (iCalendar) for universal import into any calendar application, or to CSV (Comma Separated Values) for easy viewing and sorting in Microsoft Excel.
Convert.Guru analyzes your HOL file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted TXT, ICS, XML, CSV, HTML, OLM, JMP, RWZ, WSDL, RFA, GDS, SHP and DBC files.
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 HOL converter.