Intouch Historical Data Exporter

Usually, exporting data from InTouch historical data is not an easy thing. Now, we released a stand-alone utility that allows you to export your existing InTouch history data and you don’t have to write any code for it.

Commonly referred to as “LGH files” by those familiar with the Wonderware InTouch Human Machine Interface (HMI) software, these historical log files contain data for InTouch HMI tags which are typically only accessible using the Wonderware HistData Utility, Wonderware InTouch trending tools, or by migrating the data to Wonderware Historian.

ITHistExporter can open and read LGH files effortlessly through an easy and intuitive user interface that gives plant operators, engineers, and managers the ability to query one or more InTouch tags for a given time frame and then export the results into a CSV file. There is no dependency on the HistData utility or the Wonderware InTouch HMI software.

Easily export InTouch historical data within two steps:

1. Select and parse LGH files.
2. Select tags and export to a CSV file.

All the raw data in LGH files can be exported and no data will be lost. So you don’t have to worry about your data and nothing will be lost.

What is an LGH file?

InTouch stores every logged tag value in proprietary binary history files. Each LGH file covers a specific logging period and is named after it — for example, 19112600.lgh contains data logged from 2019-11-26 00:00. LGH files are usually accompanied by an IDX index file with the same name, which helps InTouch locate each tag’s data blocks quickly.

These files live on the InTouch machine (typically under C:\ProgramData\AVEVA\History\ or C:\ProgramData\WonderWare\History\) and cannot be opened with a text editor or a spreadsheet. ITHistExporter reads the binary format directly and decodes everything for you:

• Tag names and values — every record, exactly as it was recorded
• Timestamps — with optional conversion to your local time zone

Supports every generation of InTouch history — nearly 30 years

Industrial data outlives the systems that produce it. HMIs get upgraded, servers are retired — but the history files quietly remain on backup drives and archive folders. ITHistExporter covers them all:

• InTouch 5.1 – 2022 — .LGH files — 32-character tag names
• InTouch 2023 and later — .LGH files — 128-character tag names
• InTouch 2023 R2 and later — .LGH files — the newest format, still 128-character tag names

Files from different eras can sit in the same file list — ITHistExporter detects each format automatically, with no manual configuration.

Long tag support (InTouch 2023 and later)

Starting with InTouch 2023, tag names can be up to 128 characters long — four times the previous 32-character limit. Tools built for the classic format may truncate or fail to display these “long tags”. ITHistExporter fully supports them: long tag names are read, displayed (with wrapping tooltips for very long names), and exported intact.

More than raw data

• Raw Data mode — exports every record exactly as stored, byte-for-byte the values InTouch recorded. (HistData’s output, by AVEVA’s own documentation, “is not an exact reflection of the values that are in the .idx and .lgh files.”)
• Fit Data mode — resamples to a fixed interval with aligned timestamps, ideal for reports, Excel analysis, and compliance records.
• Export to CSV or JSON — CSV opens directly in Excel.
• Batch export — process many files, many tags, in one go.

Purchase ITHistExporter License