Convert OSS files online for free
The converter easily converts your OSS file to various formats - free and online. No Notepad or extra software needed.
The converter also works in reverse, so you can convert other Settings formats to OSS with high quality output.
The .OSS file extension is most commonly associated with a Microsoft Outlook Saved Search file. Unlike PST or OST files which contain your actual email messages, calendars, and contacts, a .OSS file essentially acts as a "smart bookmark." It stores only the criteria for a search (e.g., "All emails from John sent in 2024"), not the emails themselves.
This distinction causes significant frustration for users attempting to recover lost data; opening a .OSS file without the corresponding Exchange server or local email database will typically yield no readable messages. It is a small XML-based or binary configuration file used solely to recreate "Search Folders" within the Microsoft Outlook interface.
A secondary, completely unrelated use of the extension is for Optical Surface Scan files, often utilized in medical imaging (DICOM) or structural analysis software like OpenSees. These files contain 3D spatial data representing the surface topology of a scanned object. Converting these requires specialized 3D visualization tools, whereas the Outlook variant is best viewed as plain text to retrieve the search logic.
Convert.Guru analyzes your OSS file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted JPG, HOL, OLK15MSGSOURCE and OLK15MESSAGE files.
If you want to convert OSS file to INI, CFG, CONF, CONFIG, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, ENV, PROPERTIES or RC, you can use Microsoft Outlook or similar software from the "Outlook Search Criteria Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert ZSHRC, CONF, RCFILE, GITCONFIG, RC, PLIST, BASHRC, CONFIG, PROFILE, INI, PREFS or CFG files to OSS, try Microsoft Outlook or another comparable tool in the "Outlook Search Criteria 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 OSS converter.