SFL2 Converter

Extract text from macOS shared file lists (SFL2)


Drop or upload your .SFL2 file
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How to extract text from your SFL2 file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your SFL2 file.
  2. You’ll see a preview, if available.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.

Convert SFL2 to another file type

To convert SFL2 file lists to another format, you need Apple macOS or other System software.

Convert a file to SFL2

To convert other file formats to the "System Settings File" file type, you need software like Apple macOS or a similar tool.


About SFL2 files

The .SFL2 file extension is used by Apple macOS for the Shared File List (LSSharedFileList). These files act as a database to store lists of user-specific data, such as Recent Documents, Recent Applications, Favorite Servers, and items pinned to the Finder sidebar. Under the hood, they utilize a binary PLIST (Property List) structure. The main disadvantage of an .SFL2 file is that it is compiled as a binary file rather than plain text. This makes it completely unreadable to humans, standard text editors like Notepad++, or standard web browsers. It is an internal, closed system file tightly bound to macOS APIs, meaning Windows or Linux users cannot open it natively without specialized conversion tools. To read the contents of an .SFL2 file, you must convert it to a standard XML or TXT file. Standard online converters almost always fail to process this format because they do not recognize the uncommon extension as a standard binary property list, nor do they understand the proprietary Apple internal structure. Our analysis can detect the embedded binary plist data, making viewing or conversion to human-readable XML highly realistic.

Convert.Guru analyzes your SFL2 file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.

Users also converted DS_STORE, XIP and BUNDLE files.


FAQ

If you want to convert SFL2 file to MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WMA, M4A, AIFF, OPUS, ALAC, APE or WV, you can use Apple macOS or similar software from the "macOS System Preference Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….

To convert MIDI, AAC, TTA, AU, WV, DTS, MID, FLAC, RA, MP3, PCM or WAV files to SFL2, try Apple macOS or another comparable tool in the "macOS System Preference Storage" category.



The SFL2 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 SFL2 converter.