Opening SQL Files

The SQL file type is primarily associated with MySQL.

SQL	File extension: SQL
	File type:	database query

What is an SQL file?

SQL files mostly belong to MySQL by Oracle. An SQL file is a database query written in Structured Query Language (SQL). It contains commands and static data to be executed against an SQL-compatible database engine to create, read, update, or delete databases. SQL queries are usually created with integrated database development/management environments such as MySQL Workbench or Navicat and executed against SQL Server, MySQL etc. The contents of an SQL query that creates a table with three fields (id, firstname, and lastname) will look as follows:

CREATE TABLE devs (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
firstname VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
lastname VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL);

How to open SQL files

You need a suitable software like MySQL to open an SQL file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your SQL file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a SQL file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online SQL Text Viewer

Choose your .sql file to view

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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How to extract texts from SQL files or capture a screenshot to PDF, JPG, DOCX, TXT, ...

1. To do so, click the "Choose your .sql file to view" button above.
2. Your SQL file will then be displayed in the browser.
3. Now click on "Save as..." at the top of the page.
4. Then choose the file format (e.g. JPG, PDF, DOCX, TXT, ...) you want.
5. Your file will be converted and downloaded.

SQL file format details:

To view or edit SQL files you need to know the file format, because it determines how the data in this file is stored. Each file format has a unique extension and almost always a unique signature. For example, Microsoft Word documents have the extension .docx and the signature (usually the first 3 characters in this file) PK. Frequently, however, one file extension is used by different programs for different file formats, and one file format for different file extensions. If there are problems opening a file, you must first determine the file format used. Our examination of the SQL files comes to the following conclusion:

SQL is one of the most common file extensions and covers different formats for different programs. The file formats most commonly found in SQL files are:

• 35% of all SQL files are phpMyAdmin SQL dump files. These files are plain text, which means they can be viewed with any text editor such as Windows Editor, Nano for Linux, and TextEdit for macOS. SQL files can be up to 120 GB in size, but are often around 3 KB - 2 GB. This file type is based on cutting-edge technology. Several words can almost always be found in the files, e.g. -- Host, phpMyAdmin, MySQL dump, Distrib, -- MySQL dump 10, -- ---------, x86_64, -- Server version, Host: localhost, Linux and localhost   Database. These files are attributed to dump, backup, database, users, wattpad, prod, data and admin.
• 8% of all SQL files internally utilize the SQL file format. An SQL file contains a lightweight SQLite database, widely used in application development for storing application related data. These files are binary files, so they do not contain text, but only cryptic characters. Most of these files are 12 KB to 470 KB in size. Certain words are almost always found in the files, such as SQLite format 3. A usual file name is GTMv5.sql or googleanalytics-v2.sql. Files like these are about googleanalytics, helpshift, expensez and search.

The remaining 57% of all SQL files are different files with different signatures, often e.g. UTF-16 (LE), Source, UTF-8, JetDB, CREATE, INSERT, DROP, ALTER, PGDMP, BEGIN and select. Files like these are sometimes linked to messages, migration, schema, table, sample, create or export. If you want to find out which format your SQL file belongs to, just click on the button "Choose your .sql file to view".