Get encoding of a file in Windows

Question

This isn\'t really a programming question, is there a command line or Windows tool (Windows 7) to get the current encoding of a text file? Sure I can write a little C# app b

Answer 1

Here's my take how to detect the Unicode family of text encodings via BOM. The accuracy of this method is low, as this method only works on text files (specifically Unicode files), and defaults to ascii when no BOM is present (like most text editors, the default would be UTF8 if you want to match the HTTP/web ecosystem).

Update 2018: I no longer recommend this method. I recommend using file.exe from GIT or *nix tools as recommended by @Sybren, and I show how to do that via PowerShell in a later answer.

# from https://gist.github.com/zommarin/1480974
function Get-FileEncoding($Path) {
    $bytes = [byte[]](Get-Content $Path -Encoding byte -ReadCount 4 -TotalCount 4)

    if(!$bytes) { return 'utf8' }

    switch -regex ('{0:x2}{1:x2}{2:x2}{3:x2}' -f $bytes[0],$bytes[1],$bytes[2],$bytes[3]) {
        '^efbbbf'   { return 'utf8' }
        '^2b2f76'   { return 'utf7' }
        '^fffe'     { return 'unicode' }
        '^feff'     { return 'bigendianunicode' }
        '^0000feff' { return 'utf32' }
        default     { return 'ascii' }
    }
}

dir ~\Documents\WindowsPowershell -File | 
    select Name,@{Name='Encoding';Expression={Get-FileEncoding $_.FullName}} | 
    ft -AutoSize

Recommendation: This can work reasonably well if the dir, ls, or Get-ChildItem only checks known text files, and when you're only looking for "bad encodings" from a known list of tools. (i.e. SQL Management Studio defaults to UTF16, which broke GIT auto-cr-lf for Windows, which was the default for many years.)

Answer 2

A simple solution might be opening the file in Firefox.

1. Drag and drop the file into firefox
2. Right click on the page
3. Select "View Page Info"

and the text encoding will appear on the "Page Info" window.

Note: If the file is not in txt format, just rename it to txt and try again.

P.S. For more info see this article.

Answer 3

The only way that I have found to do this is VIM or Notepad++.

Answer 4

I wrote the #4 answer (at time of writing). But lately I have git installed on all my computers, so now I use @Sybren's solution. Here is a new answer that makes that solution handy from powershell (without putting all of git/usr/bin in the PATH, which is too much clutter for me).

Add this to your profile.ps1:

$global:gitbin = 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin'
Set-Alias file.exe $gitbin\file.exe

And used like: file.exe --mime-encoding *. You must include .exe in the command for PS alias to work.

But if you don't customize your PowerShell profile.ps1 I suggest you start with mine: https://gist.github.com/yzorg/8215221/8e38fd722a3dfc526bbe4668d1f3b08eb7c08be0 and save it to ~\Documents\WindowsPowerShell. It's safe to use on a computer without git, but will write warnings when git is not found.

The .exe in the command is also how I use C:\WINDOWS\system32\where.exe from powershell; and many other OS CLI commands that are "hidden by default" by powershell, *shrug*.

Answer 5

If you have "git" or "Cygwin" on your Windows Machine, then go to the folder where your file is present and execute the command:

file *

This will give you the encoding details of all the files in that folder.

Answer 6

The (Linux) command-line tool 'file' is available on Windows via GnuWin32:

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/file.htm

If you have git installed, it's located in C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin.

Example:

    C:\Users\SH\Downloads\SquareRoot>file *
    _UpgradeReport_Files;         directory
    Debug;                        directory
    duration.h;                   ASCII C++ program text, with CRLF line terminators
    ipch;                         directory
    main.cpp;                     ASCII C program text, with CRLF line terminators
    Precision.txt;                ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
    Release;                      directory
    Speed.txt;                    ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
    SquareRoot.sdf;               data
    SquareRoot.sln;               UTF-8 Unicode (with BOM) text, with CRLF line terminators
    SquareRoot.sln.docstates.suo; PCX ver. 2.5 image data
    SquareRoot.suo;               CDF V2 Document, corrupt: Cannot read summary info
    SquareRoot.vcproj;            XML  document text
    SquareRoot.vcxproj;           XML document text
    SquareRoot.vcxproj.filters;   XML document text
    SquareRoot.vcxproj.user;      XML document text
    squarerootmethods.h;          ASCII C program text, with CRLF line terminators
    UpgradeLog.XML;               XML  document text

    C:\Users\SH\Downloads\SquareRoot>file --mime-encoding *
    _UpgradeReport_Files;         binary
    Debug;                        binary
    duration.h;                   us-ascii
    ipch;                         binary
    main.cpp;                     us-ascii
    Precision.txt;                us-ascii
    Release;                      binary
    Speed.txt;                    us-ascii
    SquareRoot.sdf;               binary
    SquareRoot.sln;               utf-8
    SquareRoot.sln.docstates.suo; binary
    SquareRoot.suo;               CDF V2 Document, corrupt: Cannot read summary infobinary
    SquareRoot.vcproj;            us-ascii
    SquareRoot.vcxproj;           utf-8
    SquareRoot.vcxproj.filters;   utf-8
    SquareRoot.vcxproj.user;      utf-8
    squarerootmethods.h;          us-ascii
    UpgradeLog.XML;               us-ascii