Extract text from Configuration files (PREF)
To convert PREF Settings to another format, you need ShuttlePRO or other Settings software.
To convert other file formats to the "Configuration File" file type, you need software like ShuttlePRO or a similar tool.
A .PREF file is a configuration file used to store user settings, application preferences, and hardware macro definitions. The most common use case is storing custom button layouts and jog wheel behaviors for Contour Design ShuttlePRO and ShuttleXpress multimedia controllers. Additionally, several software applications - such as OTT-Play, ATAK (Android Team Awareness Kit), and Sage - use .PREF files to save localized user settings, often formatting the internal data as plain XML.
Opening or editing .PREF files outside of their native applications presents significant challenges. If the file is a proprietary binary format, it will appear as scrambled text in standard editors. It is proprietary and explicitly tied to the software or hardware device that generated it. Users frequently need to convert or read these files to migrate settings to a new computer, backup custom macros, or audit software configurations. Unfortunately, standard online converters fail to process .PREF files because they lack a universal structure.
To access the data, the best target formats for conversion are XML, TXT, or JSON. Extracting the text allows you to read the raw configuration, though you will lose the ability to import that plain text back into the original software without the exact original formatting. Because this is a closed, proprietary format, often only the original software can properly read or export the data. However, just drag and drop your file to identify the format, view it, and convert it when possible on convert.guru. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format like XML, viewing or extracting the text content is still highly achievable.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PREF file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted VDF, USR and ENG files.
If you want to convert PREF file to INI, CFG, CONF, CONFIG, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, ENV, PROPERTIES or RC, you can use ShuttlePRO or similar software from the "Application Settings 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 PREF, try ShuttlePRO or another comparable tool in the "Application Settings 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 PREF converter.