The short version. An .fp5 file is a FileMaker Pro 5 or 6 database, not a spreadsheet. To get it into Excel, the records have to be exported from it as CSV or as an Excel workbook. FileMaker itself can do that if you can run an old copy. Fetchavo does it for you if you cannot, and a free preview shows what it can read before you pay.

Route 1, and try this first: an old copy of FileMaker

If you can still run a FileMaker Pro from that era, on the old machine or another, open the database there and export its records to CSV. Excel opens CSV directly. This route keeps everything the program understands about its own file, and it costs nothing if you already have the software. The wider guide, what an .fp5 file is and how to open one now, explains why current FileMaker no longer opens these files.

Route 2: check whether someone already exported it

Databases that mattered were often exported at some point: for an accountant, for a mail-merge, for a move to another system. Look for .csv, .txt or .xls files named after the database in old backups, email, and the folders of whoever ran it. An export from five years ago may be all you need.

Route 3: read the file directly

If there is no old FileMaker and no export, a reader that understands the .fp3 and .fp5 format can read the tables out of the file itself. Fetchavo is a Windows and Mac tool that does this: it reads your own database read-only and writes the tables it can read as CSV, as an Excel workbook (.xlsx), as JSON, and as a readable schema listing of the field names. The CSV and the workbook open in Excel, Numbers or anything else that reads spreadsheets.

You can see what it reads before paying anything. Without a licence it runs a free preview: it opens the database and shows the tables, field names, record counts and a small sample of rows on screen. Writing the files out is what the licence is for.

Honest scope. Fetchavo recovers your data, meaning the stored field text. It does not carry across layouts, scripts, calculations, value lists or relationships, container/media fields, or number and date display formatting, so check dates and numbers in the spreadsheet against what you remember. It reads .fp3 and .fp5 files only: .fp7 and .fmp12 files are detected and reported as unsupported, not decoded, and it does not write FileMaker files of any kind. It does no password cracking and no protection bypass. It works only on files you own.

Supported operating systems: Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), and macOS 10.15 or later on Intel and Apple silicon. One purchase covers both.

The order to work in

  1. Copy the file. Work on the copy, and keep the original as you found it.
  2. Look for an old copy of FileMaker, and for exports someone already made.
  3. If neither exists, run the free preview on the copy and check the tables and record counts against what you remember.
  4. Only then decide whether to write the files out.

If step two turns up an export, you may not need us at all. That is a good outcome.