How to convert ChessBase Mega/Big Database on a Mac

[jimratliff]

There's understandably been some puzzlement over how to use one of ChessBase large databases, such as Mega Database 2022 or Big Database 2022, on the new HCE Pro on a Mac.

In particular, the puzzlement arises because the downloadable installers from ChessBase are .exe, which can't be directly executed on a Mac.

A month or so ago, while I was beta testing HCE Pro, I purchased Big Database 2021 (2022 wasn't available then) and successfully converted it to HCE Pro's database format. It works great!

I had to figure out how to do this, because it wasn't obvious. I took notes at the time, which I'll recount here:

1. Downloaded "SetupBig2021.exe"
2. Double-clicking on it expanded it into a directory "SetupBig2021" with two subdirectories (a) "•€" and (b) "š€"
3. Dig into the first of those subdirectories, and then into "Bases" to find "BigDatabase2021.exe"
4. Double-clicking on BigDatabase2021.exe expands it into a directory "BigDatabase2021" containing 32 items. This directory is the database; no one file is the database. Each file is named "Big Database 2021" but differs in its file extension.
5. The relevant file within that folder is "Big Database 2021.cbh"

Now switch to HCE Pro:

1. File » Open…, This opens the Databases dialog box, which has a Find text field at the top, and a list of previously opened databases (giving for each its type (e.g., HCE, PGN), number of games, and date last used. At the bottom is a button "Open another database…"
2. Click the "Open another database…" button. This opens a standard Open dialog, with a file-type filter drop-down menu selector to choose between: (a) Chess databases (*.hce, *.pgn, *.cbh, *.cbv, *.cbz, *.epd) [The default] and (b) All files (*.*)
3. Navigate to the folder "BigDatabase2021" (i.e., so that the 32 items of that folder are visible in the Open dialog box)
4. Select "Chess databases" from the file-type filter drop-down menu. The only file not grayed out will be: "Big Database 2021.cbh"
5. Click on "Big Database 2021.cbh" to select it.
6. Click Open. You'll see a dialog box: "Do you want to convert the database Big Database 2021.cbh to native format? Original file will be unchanged." There are three buttons: "Cancel", "Open read-only", and "Convert".
7. Click "Convert". You'll then see a Save dialog box, allowing you to choose the location of the destination HCE database.
8. Navigate to the desired destination of the HCE database.
9. Click "Save". This process takes a while. Fortunately, a progress bar shows up at the bottom of the large application window, showing the progress of the conversion.
10. This resulted in "Big Database 2021.hce", which is 2.09GB in size, representing about 8.5 million games from 1475 to October 2020.
    
    Please feel free to point out any errors or improvements on this methodology.

[browniesbane]

It works much the same with other cb databases.if they are on shared drive or a thumb drive (after a copy and paste), you can connect to the drive and find and open up the cbh file with hce pro. Just be sure the subsidiary cb files are in the directory, otherwise cbh won’t open.

For cbase magazine, you direct hce pro to the dvd files, find the cbh and open it. One slightly confusing thing is that when you check the dvd Directory, you will first see file folders with the name of the databases. You ignore those and scroll down till you find the cbh and associated cb files which are not in separate folders.


I didn’t find errors in bringing over annotations. Some of the cbase opening surveys have an introduction that links to games in the database. Using hce, those internal links are dead, but you can stil read the intro as text— no big deal.

[KLc]

I‘m not sure. I first created an „archive“ (.CBV) of the MegaDatabase in ChessBase (of course it crashed on the first try). This is a single file. And then I opened this file directly in HCE. It‘s a bit more than 2GB, 2.3 I think.

[jimratliff]

I‘m not sure. I first created an „archive“ (.CBV) of the MegaDatabase in ChessBase (of course it crashed on the first try). This is a single file. And then I opened this file directly in HCE. It‘s a bit more than 2GB, 2.3 I think.

It sounds like you had access to ChessBase and Windows, which is convenient. My method in the first post was for those in a Mac-only environment who then purchased the database from ChessBase.

[KLc]

Ah, well, I thought if you bought the MegaDB then you would have Windows as well. Anyways, I also wasn't sure whether it's all in the CBH file, that's why I created a CBV archive.

[browniesbane]

I learned the hard way that the cbh by itself does not contain all the information, but if you are having trouble with cbv I think opening the cbh file will work as long as the other cb files are in the same open folder or directory.

[KLc]

I learned the hard way that the cbh by itself does not contain all the information,

Could you say more precisely what’s missing?

[mrudolf]

I learned the hard way that the cbh by itself does not contain all the information,

Could you say more precisely what’s missing?

It happened to me many times that someone just copied or sent CBH file (without other files) and assumed this was enough to restore the database.

[browniesbane]

I copied and pasted a lone cbh file to my Mac when beta testing, but hce pro wouldn’t open it. Mark thought I needed to allow access to some of the other cb files, but wasn’t sure which. So, I copy and pasted all the cb files into the same folder with the cbh and sure enough hce pro opened it. I have no idea what’s in cbh by itself or which of the other cb files are needed.

[mrudolf]

I copied and pasted a lone cbh file to my Mac when beta testing, but hce pro wouldn’t open it. Mark thought I needed to allow access to some of the other cb files, but wasn’t sure which. So, I copy and pasted all the cb files into the same folder with the cbh and sure enough hce pro opened it. I have no idea what’s in cbh by itself or which of the other cb files are needed.

ChessBase database consist of many files, one has headers, one has games, one has player names etc. I don't know the content of all of them, but HCE uses at least CBH, CBP, CBT, CBC, CBG and CBA.

[browniesbane]

https://en.chessbase.com/support-kb/con ... a%20format

[mlabudde]

Double-clicking on it expanded it into a directory "SetupBig2021" with two subdirectories (a) "•€" and (b) "š€"

When I try this I get a message saying "You can't open the application "SetupMega2024.exe" because Microsoft Windows applications are not supported on macOS." (I'm on macOS Big Sur.) Can you tell me what real/underlying application is that's being used to 'open' the exe file on your Mac? Thank you!

[SchuBi]

I copied and pasted a lone cbh file to my Mac when beta testing, but hce pro wouldn’t open it. Mark thought I needed to allow access to some of the other cb files, but wasn’t sure which. So, I copy and pasted all the cb files into the same folder with the cbh and sure enough hce pro opened it. I have no idea what’s in cbh by itself or which of the other cb files are needed.

The safest way imho to export the chessbase-Database on a PC as pgn-File, but the Mega-Database is approximate 10 GB as pgn-file.
Niormal cbm-Files (e.g. Twicbase) make no problems

[Alexander]

A method that I used with a mac was to install Virtual box on the mac, then install Windows 11 on the virtual box. I then ran the W11, installed the Chessbase database by running the .exe file. This basically unwrapped the database. I then exported all the files to my mac environment by putting them into dropbox. I'm sure there's an easier way, but this way does work but of course requires a copy of windows that will run an exe file. When exporting the files basically drag all the

If you do this then make sure you create your virtual box with loads of gigabytes of storage as installing Windows AND unwrapping the chessbase database uses loads of storage. Way more than you expect. You can of course delete the Windows installation after you've exported the data.

It was a bit of a faff doing it this way, but you need to do it so infrequently it's definitely been worth it for me with >9 million games now on HIARCS.

I couldn't get WINE to run the .exe file on my mac so this is why I did it this way.

[GoneBallistics]

Double-clicking on it expanded it into a directory "SetupBig2021" with two subdirectories (a) "•€" and (b) "š€"

When I try this I get a message saying "You can't open the application "SetupMega2024.exe" because Microsoft Windows applications are not supported on macOS." (I'm on macOS Big Sur.) Can you tell me what real/underlying application is that's being used to 'open' the exe file on your Mac? Thank you!

Did you try unpacking the exe? The folders are a bit messed up but all the files are there.
The problem is if inside there is a 2cbh file this won't help because only cb17 can read that format.