Help needed converting old Finale files to MusicXML

Hi everyone,

I've just heard that Finale, the music notation software, is going to be discontinued. Many years ago, I created several scores using a very old version of Finale. Unfortunately, that version did not support exporting to MusicXML, and the files are saved in Finale's proprietary format (e.g., .mus).

Now I’m looking for a way to convert these old Finale files to MusicXML so I can preserve them and continue working with them in other notation programs. However, I no longer have access to a working copy of Finale, and other programs can’t open the files.

Is there any tool, service, or workaround that could help me convert these files? Maybe someone with a newer version of Finale could help?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated — I really don’t want to lose these old scores.

Thanks in advance!

If you take MakeMusic’s upgrade to Dorico, it includes a download of Finale 27.4.1, and that will give you the ability to convert to mXML 4.0. Honestly, that’s as advanced as anything is right now w/r to mXML and for Finale, that’s as advanced as it will ever be since it is no longer being maintained or updated.

At minimum, right now you can use the graphics tool to export to PDF individually (or use the Print function to do this in bulk, but older versions of Finale don’t produce as nice an output that way compared with the Graphics Tool). Also, look at today’s post on Scoring Notes (https://www.scoringnotes.com/news/leaving-finale-behind/ ) that nicely outlines how to convert to mXML for import into other, still supported notation programs like Dorico, Sibelius and Musescore. Good luck!

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