What is a .SAV file?
The .sav extension names both SPSS statistics datasets and video-game save files.
SPSS dataset
- What it is
- An IBM SPSS Statistics data file - cases and variables for statistical analysis. Analyser identifies it and reads the variable metadata.
- How to tell it apart
- An SPSS file begins with the ASCII magic $FL2.
- Did you know
- SPSS launched in 1968 as one of the first statistics packages for social scientists, and its .sav still tags every variable with its survey question and value labels.
- SPSS - the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences - was written in 1968 by three graduate students, Norman Nie, Dale Bent and Tex Hull.
- IBM bought SPSS in 2009 for about 1.2 billion US dollars and rebranded it IBM SPSS Statistics, though the .sav files it writes stayed compatible.
Game save file
- What it is
- A video-game save file - progress, inventory and state for emulators and many PC games. The internal layout is game-specific, so Analyser identifies it and falls back to a hex view.
- How to tell it apart
- Game saves use game-specific layouts (no shared magic).
- Did you know
- There is no standard .sav format - each game invents its own, which is why save editors are written per-game and a hex view is often the only way in.
- Emulators use a .sav to hold the contents of a cartridge's battery-backed SRAM, the same chip 1980s games such as The Legend of Zelda used to remember your progress after the power went off.
- A .sav (a persistent in-game save) is not the same as a save-state, which snapshots the emulator's whole RAM and CPU registers at one instant, so some emulators keep both.
- Depth of analysis
- .SAV is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .SAV file
- Drag a .SAV file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.