HOSTS Converter

Extract text from HOSTS files


Drop or upload your .HOSTS file
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How to extract text from your HOSTS file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your HOSTS file.
  2. You’ll see a preview, if available.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.

Convert HOSTS to another file type

To convert your HOSTS file to another format, you need Microsoft Notepad or other System software.

Convert a file to HOSTS

To convert other file formats to the "Network Configuration" file type, you need software like Microsoft Notepad or a similar tool.


About HOSTS files

The .hosts file (often simply named hosts without an extension) is a plain-text system configuration file used by Windows, macOS, and Linux to manually map IP addresses to hostnames, effectively overriding global DNS lookups. While critical for local development and ad-blocking, these files create significant friction for users: they lack a default file association (triggering the confusing "Open With" prompt), require Administrator privileges to edit, and become unreadable when populated with thousands of ad-blocking entries. Furthermore, standard text editors like Microsoft Notepad offer no tools for sorting, filtering, or deduplicating IP addresses. Converting a .hosts file to CSV or Microsoft Excel (XLSX) allows network administrators to manage complex blocklists using spreadsheets. For archiving network configurations or sharing static IP maps with non-technical staff, converting to PDF provides a secure, read-only format.

Convert.Guru analyzes your HOSTS file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.

Users also converted BIN, SKS, ZONE and RTS files.


FAQ

If you want to convert HOSTS file to , you can use Microsoft Notepad or similar software from the "Hostname Resolution" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….

To convert files to HOSTS, try Microsoft Notepad or another comparable tool in the "Hostname Resolution" category.



The HOSTS Converter Story

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 HOSTS converter.