Guide
How to convert a .mny file to CSV
There is no way to rename a .mny to .csv and have it work,
and no spreadsheet will import one. Here is why, what Microsoft's own free tool can and
cannot do about it, and exactly which fields come out the other side.
Why renaming it does nothing
A .mny file is not a document. It is a Microsoft Jet database in the MSISAM
variant, and it is encrypted — the header is masked and every page is
scrambled. Excel, Numbers and Access all refuse it for the same reason: there is nothing
readable in there until the decryption is done first.
This is worth saying plainly because most advice online treats .mny as an
ordinary Access file. It is not, and those instructions will waste your afternoon.
The free route, and where it stops
Microsoft released Money Plus Sunset in 2010 — the full program, free, with no activation. If you have a Windows machine, it will open your file. Inside it you can run a report and export it, which for a single account over a short period may be all you need. Start there before paying anyone, including us.
Where it stops is the whole history. Money's export was limited when it was current and it was never improved: you are exporting one report at a time, by hand, in a program that has to be installed on Windows first. For one account that is an evening. For a decade of accounts it is not a realistic afternoon's work.
Reading the file directly instead
The other approach is to decrypt the database and write the contents straight out. Microsoft Money Rescue does that on your own machine — it performs the MSISAM header de-masking and per-page decryption itself, so no copy of Money is needed and nothing is uploaded.
What actually lands in the CSV
Being specific matters more than being enthusiastic, so here is the real list.
| You get | Not included |
|---|---|
| Accounts — name, type, opening balance | Split-transaction detail lines are not decoded |
| The full transaction ledger — date, amount, memo, cleared status, payee and category links | Per-holding investment quantities |
| Securities — name, ticker, last price | Payee postal addresses |
| The complete income and expense category tree | Investment positions and trades — investment accounts come out as cash ledgers |
| The payee directory | Currency handles are not resolved to ISO codes |
It reads Money 2001 through Money Plus 2008, both the legacy encryption and the modern one. Money 2000 is not supported. If your file is from Money 2000, this will not help you, and we would rather say so than take your £39.
Password-protected files
Money 2002–2008 files that were password-protected open with the password you supply. Your file, your password. There is no password guessing and no cracking — if the password is genuinely lost, this cannot get you in, and nothing else honestly can either.
You also get more than CSV
CSV is the right answer for Excel, Numbers or your own analysis. If the real destination is another finance program, QIF and OFX come out of the same run and carry the structure across properly — see moving your data into Quicken or GnuCash. Every run also writes a recovery report saying what came out and what did not.
Your original .mny is opened read-only and is never written to, including its
modification time. Exports go to a location you choose, never next to the original.
See what is in your file before you pay anything
You can run Microsoft Money Rescue against your own
.mny file and see on screen what it finds — the accounts, how many transactions,
the date range — before deciding whether it is worth £39 to you. Saving that out to
files is what the licence unlocks; looking is free.
Download and check your .mny file free