XFACE Converter

Extract text from X-Face images (XFACE)


Drop or upload your .XFACE file
✈

How to extract text from your XFACE file

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

Convert XFACE to another file type

To convert XFACE images to another format, you need Claws Mail or other Raster Image software.

Convert a file to XFACE

To convert other file formats to the "Monochrome Bitmap Avatar" file type, you need software like Claws Mail or a similar tool.


About XFACE files

An .xface file is a tiny 48x48 pixel, 1-bit (black and white) bitmap image. James Ashton developed it originally for Usenet newsgroups and email headers to display a small sender avatar. Historically, email clients like Claws Mail and Sylpheed natively support decoding and displaying these images. See the X-Face Wikipedia page for historical context. The .xface format has severe disadvantages today. It is restricted to a maximum resolution of 48x48 pixels and only supports two colors. It is completely unsupported by modern web browsers, default OS image viewers, and mainstream design tools like Adobe Photoshop. Often, the file data is not even stored as binary image data but as a heavily compressed ASCII text string inside an email header. To make these images usable, you must convert them to standard raster formats like PNG or GIF. These targets preserve the exact pixel layout without adding file bloat. This file format is difficult to open because it relies on legacy text-encoding algorithms rather than standard image headers. Standard online converters fail to process it because they expect standard binary images. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.

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


FAQ

If you want to convert XFACE file to JPG, PDF, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, TIF, WEBP, ICO, CUR, PSD or PSB, you can use Claws Mail or similar software from the "Email and Usenet Avatar" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….

To convert RAW, PNG, AI, NEF, PSB, DNG, SVG, GIF, EPS, JPG, ARW or PDF files to XFACE, try Claws Mail or another comparable tool in the "Email and Usenet Avatar" category.



The XFACE 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 XFACE converter.