What is the UID file format?
A .uid file is an IBM VoiceType User Data File, a proprietary binary profile used by IBM VoiceType, an early speech-recognition and dictation software product for DOS and Windows personal computers. IBM introduced VoiceType around 1993 as one of the first commercially available continuous-speech dictation systems for PCs.
Each .uid file stores a trained speaker profile - including acoustic model adaptations, custom vocabulary additions, and dictation preferences specific to one user. This per-user data was essential for recognition accuracy, as VoiceType required users to train the software with their own voice before dictation became reliable.
The file format is entirely proprietary and undocumented. No public specification, known magic bytes, or third-party tools exist for reading .uid files outside of IBM VoiceType itself.
IBM replaced VoiceType with IBM ViaVoice in 1997, which used an incompatible profile format. ViaVoice was eventually discontinued by IBM as well. The modern heir to this product line is Dragon (originally Dragon NaturallySpeaking by ScanSoft/Nuance, now maintained by Microsoft), which uses its own profile format.
.uid files have no practical use today and cannot be opened by any currently supported software. Note that .uid is also used generically by various applications as a unique-identifier file; the IBM VoiceType meaning is the primary documented one.
Security & safety
RISK: LOWA .uid file from IBM VoiceType is a data file for legacy speech-recognition software and poses no practical security risk. It cannot execute and is only useful (in theory) with the original discontinued software.
Format details
in a nutshell- Generic Unique Identifier / UID file - Various software uses .uid for storing unique ID tokens or license keys; completely unrelated to IBM VoiceType.
- Xilinx/AMD FPGA UID files - Some FPGA toolchains emit .uid files storing device identifier data.
Programs that open UID files
Windows1 app
IBM VoiceType
Free No longer available. IBM VoiceType is discontinued; the software and its download no longer exist from any official source. Technical details
deep spec| Encoding | Binary (proprietary) |
| Content | Trained speaker acoustic profile, custom vocabulary additions, and dictation preferences |
| Developer | IBM (VoiceType speech-recognition software, introduced circa 1993) |
| Format documentation | Undocumented and proprietary; no public specification or known magic bytes |
| Associated OS | DOS (early versions), Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98 |
| Software dependency | Usable only within IBM VoiceType; no third-party tool can read the format |
| Software status | IBM VoiceType discontinued before 2000; superseded by IBM ViaVoice (1997), itself also discontinued |
| Modern equivalent | Dragon (by Nuance/Microsoft) is the current commercial speech-recognition product; uses its own incompatible profile format |
| Typical use | Stored per-user in the VoiceType installation directory; one file per trained speaker |
| Extension ambiguity | .uid is also used generically by various applications as a unique-identifier file; the IBM VoiceType meaning is the primary documented one |
| Recoverability | Cannot be opened by any currently supported software; format effectively abandoned |
| Released | circa 1993 (IBM VoiceType DOS/Windows dictation software) |
| Latest version | unknown; software discontinued before 2000 |
UID conversions
Community Q&A
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