What is an EXO File?

How to Open, Edit, & Convert EXO Files

Screenshot of the YouTube logo
© YouTube, Inc.

A file with the EXO file extension is a YouTube Video Chunk file. These types of EXO files are literally chunks of a larger file that are created when an offline video is requested from within the YouTube app on some Android devices.

YouTube EXO files are very often encrypted and compressed.

Some EXO files may not be video files at all, but instead Motorola EXORmacs Data files. Some EXO files might instead be generic, system files, supporting come proprietary software programs.

How To Open an EXO File

The Android YouTube app is the only way to open EXO files that are YouTube Video Chunk files.

Note: Not every YouTube video is available for offline playback and not every country where the YouTube app is available can actually use it to save videos for offline use. However, for the countries that can (like India, Indonesia, and Philippines), the same YouTube app is used to open the EXO files. Unfortunately, this isn't done manually.

The EXO files are opened automatically with the app, without you having to do anything. The app pieces together all the different EXO files together, so that the chunks become a whole file once again, and then the app decrypts the video file so that it can be played back.

Getting a hold of these EXO files on a computer will do you no good since it's only the YouTube application on Android devices that can join them together and decrypt them.

You can read more about the YouTube offline feature on Google's blog.

I'm sure your EXO file is most likely related to the YouTube app, but if not, it could be a Motorola EXORmacs Data file. These files are loaded into non-volatile memory via JTAG with Xilinx iMPACT. There's some more information about this process at the Xilinx website.

Tip: Although the EXO files mentioned above (especially the video files) probably cannot be viewed with a text editor, you may have an .EXO file that is completely different and is text-based. This means you can use a program like Notepad in Windows or the free Notepad++ to view the file's contents.

If your EXO file isn't a text file, in which case most of the text is illegible and scrambled, you may still use a text editor like Notepad to find something within all that computer-garbage that describes what the file is. Assuming you find something interesting, you can then do some research online to see what program was used to create it.

Note: Although their file extensions share similar letters, EXO files are not the same as EXE, EXR, or EX4 files.

How To Convert an EXO File

YouTube Video Chunk files in the .EXO file format cannot be converted to MP4, AVI, MKV, or any other video format with a video converter because the files are encrypted and relevant only within the context of the YouTube app.

You can convert a Motorola EXORmacs Dataan .EXO file to an .MCS file (Intel MCS86) using a command like this:

promgen –p mcs –r input.exo –o out.mcs

You can read more about converting EXO to MCS in this PDF from the Xilinx website.

More Help With EXO Files

See Get More Help for information about contacting me on social networks or via email, posting on tech support forums, and more. Let me know what kinds of problems you're having with opening or using the EXO file and I'll see what I can do to help.