Get encoding of a file in Windows

Install git ( on Windows you have to use git bash console). Type:

file --mime-encoding *   

for all files in the current directory , or

file --mime-encoding */*   

for the files in all subdirectories

A simple solution might be opening the file in Firefox.

1. Drag and drop the file into firefox
2. Press Ctrl+I to open the 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.

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*.

you can simply check that by opening your git bash on the file location then running the command file -i file_name

example

user filesData
$ file -i data.csv
data.csv: text/csv; charset=utf-8

Some C code here for reliable ascii, bom's, and utf8 detection: https://unicodebook.readthedocs.io/guess_encoding.html

Only ASCII, UTF-8 and encodings using a BOM (UTF-7 with BOM, UTF-8 with BOM, UTF-16, and UTF-32) have reliable algorithms to get the encoding of a document. For all other encodings, you have to trust heuristics based on statistics.

EDIT:

A powershell version of a C# answer from: Effective way to find any file's Encoding. Only works with signatures (boms).

# get-encoding.ps1
param([Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$True)] $filename)    
begin {
  # set .net current directoy                                                                                                   
  [Environment]::CurrentDirectory = (pwd).path
}
process {
  $reader = [System.IO.StreamReader]::new($filename, 
    [System.Text.Encoding]::default,$true)
  $peek = $reader.Peek()
  $encoding = $reader.currentencoding
  $reader.close()
  [pscustomobject]@{Name=split-path $filename -leaf
                BodyName=$encoding.BodyName
                EncodingName=$encoding.EncodingName}
}


.\get-encoding chinese8.txt

Name         BodyName EncodingName
----         -------- ------------
chinese8.txt utf-8    Unicode (UTF-8)


get-childitem -file | .\get-encoding

Similar to the solution listed above with Notepad, you can also open the file in Visual Studio, if you're using that. In Visual Studio, you can select "File > Advanced Save Options..."

The "Encoding:" combo box will tell you specifically which encoding is currently being used for the file. It has a lot more text encodings listed in there than Notepad does, so it's useful when dealing with various files from around the world and whatever else.

Just like Notepad, you can also change the encoding from the list of options there, and then saving the file after hitting "OK". You can also select the encoding you want through the "Save with Encoding..." option in the Save As dialog (by clicking the arrow next to the Save button).

EncodingChecker

File Encoding Checker is a GUI tool that allows you to validate the text encoding of one or more files. The tool can display the encoding for all selected files, or only the files that do not have the encodings you specify.

File Encoding Checker requires .NET 4 or above to run.

Looking for a Node.js/npm solution? Try encoding-checker:

npm install -g encoding-checker

Usage

Usage: encoding-checker [-p pattern] [-i encoding] [-v]
 
Options:
  --help                 Show help                                     [boolean]
  --version              Show version number                           [boolean]
  --pattern, -p, -d                                               [default: "*"]
  --ignore-encoding, -i                                            [default: ""]
  --verbose, -v                                                 [default: false]

Examples

Get encoding of all files in current directory:

encoding-checker

Return encoding of all md files in current directory:

encoding-checker -p "*.md"

Get encoding of all files in current directory and its subfolders (will take quite some time for huge folders; seemingly unresponsive):

encoding-checker -p "**"

For more examples refer to the npm docu or the official repository.