Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your PFC file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert PFC to another file type
To convert PFC AOL files to another format, you need AOL Desktop or other Database software.
Convert a file to PFC
To convert other file formats to the "Email Archive File" file type, you need software like AOL Desktop or a similar tool.
About PFC files
The .PFC file is a Personal Filing Cabinet database created by legacy versions of AOL Desktop. It stores downloaded emails, address books, and saved bookmarks for offline viewing. In rare cases, .PFC extensions are also used for PhotoFiltre Studio project files, Picture Filer graphics, or Plum heating controller firmware updates. Users must convert AOL .PFC files because the format is strictly proprietary, undocumented, and entirely obsolete. These files often exceed hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes, locking years of critical communication inside an inaccessible container. Modern email clients like Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird cannot read them. The format lacks cross-platform support and usually requires specialized paid migration software to parse. The best target formats are MBOX, EML, or PST for importing emails into current email clients. However, extracting data from a .PFC file is difficult; folder hierarchies and embedded binary attachments are frequently corrupted or lost during export. This file format is notoriously hard to open or convert because AOL never published its technical specifications, keeping the data structurally locked. Standard online converters fail to process its proprietary binary architecture. We can inspect the file and show raw text or internal content. If our analysis detects readable email bodies or supported embedded formats, viewing or partial conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PFC file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert PFC file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use AOL Desktop or similar software from the "Email and 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 PFC, try AOL Desktop or another comparable tool in the "Email and Data Storage" category.
The PFC 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 PFC converter.