Extract text from SMI files
To convert your SMI file to another format, you need Windows Media Player or other Text software.
To convert other file formats to the "Subtitle Script File" file type, you need software like Windows Media Player or a similar tool.
The .smi extension typically refers to the SAMI (Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange) format, a text-based subtitle standard developed by Microsoft for Windows Media Player. These files use an HTML-like structure to synchronize text captions with video content. However, this extension is ambiguous and can also represent SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) presentations used for web multimedia, or legacy Self-Mounting Images used on older Mac OS 9 systems.
Users run into issues with .smi files because modern media players (like VLC or Plex), smart TVs, and web browsers favor the simpler SRT or VTT formats. The SAMI syntax is verbose and proprietary, causing display errors or total failure in non-Microsoft environments. Additionally, if the file is a legacy Mac Self-Mounting Image, it is an executable that modern macOS cannot open directly, acting as a locked container for ancient software.
To ensure your content is accessible, the best practice is to convert SAMI subtitles to SRT for universal hardware support or VTT for HTML5 web players. For archiving or editing, converting the text content to TXT removes the formatting tags. If you are dealing with a Mac disk image, converting the payload to a standard ISO or DMG is necessary to access the data.
Convert.Guru analyzes your SMI file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted SMIL, SRT, MP4, TXT, MSI, FLC, ASF, SDF and VTT files.
If you want to convert SMI file to SRT, MP4, TXT, SDF, VTT, ISO, IMG, DMG, VHD, VMDK, VDI or HDD, you can use Windows Media Player or similar software from the "Video Subtitles & Captions" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert VFD, DMG, OVA, IMA, VBOX, ADF, PVS, VHD, OVF, ISO, DSK or IMG files to SMI, try Windows Media Player or another comparable tool in the "Video Subtitles & Captions" 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 SMI converter.