Extract text from Windows registry files (REG)
To convert REG registry files to another format, you need Microsoft Registry Editor or other System software.
To convert other file formats to the "Windows Registry Data File" file type, you need software like Microsoft Registry Editor or a similar tool.
A .REG file is a text-based export of Windows Registry data. It is primarily used to back up registry hives, deploy configuration changes, or share system settings across Windows machines. These files contain specific keys, subkeys, and values that Microsoft Windows uses to manage hardware and software configurations.
You can open and apply .REG files natively using the built-in Registry Editor (regedit.exe). Because they are usually plain text encoded in UTF-16 (LE) or UTF-8, they can also be inspected with any text editor like Notepad++.
However, .REG files present significant risks and limitations. Double-clicking a .REG file immediately merges its contents into the live registry, which can corrupt a system if the data is malicious or incorrectly formatted. They are also proprietary to the Windows ecosystem and cannot be naturally parsed by standard database tools, macOS, or Linux systems. Furthermore, reading complex registry dumps in raw text is tedious and prone to human error.
Converting .REG files makes their data safer to analyze and easier to process. For auditing and readability, convert to TXT. If you need to import the registry data into a database or spreadsheet for bulk analysis, convert to CSV. For programmatic parsing, XML or JSON are the best targets.
Convert.Guru analyzes your REG file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted TXT, 2025-REG, BEYBLADE, SYSTEM, ETL, STY, KEY, PS1, PDF, XML, CUBE, ZIP and RWZ files.
If you want to convert REG file to XML, BAT, PS1, CMD, ADMX, EXE, INI, CFG, CONF, CONFIG, JSON or YAML, you can use Microsoft Registry Editor or similar software from the "Windows Registry Configuration Backup" 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 REG, try Microsoft Registry Editor or another comparable tool in the "Windows Registry Configuration Backup" 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 REG converter.