File Extension Library


.XWM File Extension

  • Developer by: Bethesda Softworks LLC
  • Category: Game Files

What are .XWM files and how to open them?

Can't open .XWM file? Are you wondering what it contains? On our site we will explain to you what this file is, what it is used for and what software opens the .XWM file.

What is a .XWM file extension?

.XWM file extension is created by Bethesda Softworks LLC. .XWM has been classified as Game Files.

.XWM is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim music

The xwm file extension is used for audio files that contains music for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim computer game, created by Bethesda and released in November 2011.

These files are located within Skyrim - Sounds.bsa archive. This archive can be extracted with various BSA tools (see bsa file extension for more details) and the audio files with .xwm extension can be played with VLC player (although with lousy quality).

Seems XWM format is actually xWMA format, which is a subset of common WMA format. There is a tool called xWMAEncode.exe in Microsoft's DirectX SDK, which is able to convert xWMA format (so XWM as well) to WAV, which can then be converted to plethora of other formats like MP3 or FLAC.

To convert XWM to WAV follow these few steps:

  • Download Microsoft's DirectX SDK and locate the xWMAEncode.exe program
  • Extract music files from Skyrim - Sounds.bsa with any working BSA Extractor
  • Copy xWMAEncode.exe to the folder where you extracted the music from previous step
  • Launch cmd.exe and locate your folder with the .xwm files
  • Once in the folder, type xwmaencode file.xwm file.wav, where file is the name of one of the extracted .wxm files. If you want to convert more files at once, its probably better to create a batch file for it.
  • And that's it. You should now have the files in WAV and can convert it to any other file format. 


    How to open:

    VLC player can play *.xwm files although with poor quality.

    How to convert:

    You can convert *.xwm files to WAV with xWMAEncode.exe program from DirectX SDK.

    How to fix problems with .XWM files

    1. You need to update the application that you normally use to open .XWM files. Only the latest version of the software supports the current .XWM file format
    2. You need to check the .XWM file for viruses. To do this, you need to scan it with a popular antivirus (Norton, Nod32, Kaspersky, Dr.Web, etc.)