Free online MHTML to TXT converter

Source format

MHTML (also seen as .mht or .mhtml) is a web archive format used to save an entire web page as a single file. It bundles the HTML document plus linked resources such as images, stylesheets, and sometimes scripts into one container using MIME encoding. MHTML is commonly used by browsers and email-related tools for archiving pages, sharing a page snapshot, or preserving content for offline viewing.

Target format

TXT is a plain-text format that stores only readable characters, with no formatting, images, or embedded objects. Its main advantages are simplicity, small file size, and wide compatibility across operating systems, editors, and automation tools. TXT is typically used for notes, logs, scripts, extracted text, and data interchange when formatting is not needed.

How to perform the conversion

The best method depends on whether you want a quick text extraction or a more controlled conversion. For most cases, the simplest approach is to open the MHTML file in a browser or document tool and save or export the visible text to TXT. If you need better control over the extracted content, use a desktop application or a command-line workflow.

1. Open the MHTML file in a browser such as Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox if it supports the file, or in a document editor that can read web archives.
2. Extract the text by selecting the content you want and copying it into a plain-text editor such as Notepad, TextEdit in plain-text mode, or Notepad++.
3. Save as TXT using File → Save As, then choose .txt as the filename extension and plain text as the file type if prompted.
4. For batch or automated conversion, use a text-processing tool that can strip HTML markup after extracting the page from the archive. A practical desktop workflow is to open the file in a browser, copy the rendered text, and paste it into a plain-text editor before saving as TXT.

If your MHTML file contains mostly article text, this method usually produces a clean result. If it contains complex page layouts, the extracted TXT will be linearized and may not preserve the original reading order perfectly.

Notes on quality and limitations

TXT cannot preserve formatting, images, tables, hyperlinks, or embedded media from MHTML. Only the text content remains, and even that may lose structure such as headings, columns, or lists. If the source page uses dynamic content, scripts, or lazy-loaded elements, those parts may not appear in the saved text unless they were fully rendered before extraction.

Character encoding is another important factor. When saving to TXT, choose UTF-8 if available to avoid garbled non-ASCII characters. Also note that some MHTML files are browser-specific and may not open identically in every application, so the extracted text can vary depending on the tool used.