Determine what kind of file it is. How to determine which program to use to open a file with an unknown extension. How to enable extensions display

What is a file extension?

File extensions- this is some kind of metadata. Typically, a file extension is used to indicate the type of data that can be stored in a file. Thus, a file extension is a sequence of characters that are intended to identify the file format. Usually the extension is separated from the main file name by a dot. In early operating systems, the extension was limited to only three characters, but this limitation was later removed. Some files have several extensions that follow each other (for example, .tar.gz). Operating systems automatically match the extensions of certain files and the programs designed to work with those files. And after such a comparison, the operating system will automatically open a file with a certain extension in the program that was associated with it.

The file extension and its name are separated by a period, for example, index.html, where html is the file extension. Looking at the file extension, you can immediately tell what kind of file it is - text, picture, sound or program. File names may or may not have extensions. Computer users have some conventions about using standard extensions in file names. Programs that create different types of information typically assign standard permissions to the names of the files in which that information is stored. And by the type of this permission, the user can conclude what program was used to create the file.

How to find out file type by its expansion?

The following are ways to determine the file type by extension:

Termin.narod.ru- this site contains an extensive list of file extensions; to find the extension you need, you only need to select the letter with which it begins.

Uic.vsu.ru- The most popular extensions are collected here.

Filetypes.ru- this site contains the most complete search database of file extensions; you just need to enter the required extension into the form.

Filext.com- a site in English where you can also get information about the file extension by entering it in the form.

Another way is the program Know Extension Pro, which determines the file type by its extension. The English database contains more than 23,000 file types, the Russian database - 2235. The program can work from the context menu and in compact mode. You can add your own definitions to the extension database. The program is distributed free of charge. The purpose of the program is to determine its type by the file extension. The program will be useful both for novice users who want to find out the purpose of certain files, and for experienced users who want to create their own knowledge base, since with the help of this program you can add new data to the database.

To start working with the program, simply drag the file of interest into a special field in the program window, or select the menu item File - Open. If such an extension is contained in the database, its description will be immediately displayed.

Very often, users have to face a problem when a file is of a certain type, we try to open it with the default program, but it does not open. For example, they send a text file by mail (extension .txt), we open it, and there are only a huge number of incomprehensible characters. This file may well turn out to be, for example, a .rar archive. It may be completely unclear to an inexperienced user how to determine the type of this file and what program can open it. It is also possible that the file has no extension at all. In this case, it is displayed by the system as "unidentified".

In order to determine the file type even in the absence of an extension, i.e. a set of characters (usually three) after the dot at the end of the file name, for example, “doc”, “gif”, we suggest using a free program File Type Verifier (FTV) Shedko software company.

Downloading the program

You can download the File Type Verificator (FTV) program from the official developer website using the link.

If you have any difficulties downloading the program from the above link, we suggest downloading the program from the free Yandex.Disk service using this link. The program file corresponds to the current version (April 2011). The administration asks the reader of the article to leave a message in the comments if the file is not available. Thank you.

Installing the program

Run the downloaded program file, the installation wizard window will open:

Check the box " I accept the terms of the agreement", click " Next". A window for selecting the installation directory will open:

Once the installation is complete, the following window will open:

If you want the program to start immediately, leave a checkmark next to " Launch File Type Verificator". Click the " button Ready".

If after restarting the program you see that it has an English interface, go to Main menu to point " Tools" and select " Select Language" (Fig. 6):

In the window that opens (Fig. 7), select from the drop-down list under " Select preferable language" paragraph " Russian.ini", click " OK" and restart the program.

If the Russian language is not there, we suggest turning to the point " Russification of the program". If you do not need the Russian interface or it is already available in the program, you can skip the next subsection of the article.

Russification File Type Verificator

To Russify the File Type Verificator (FTV) program, you need to download a special file (" Russian.zip") on this page.

Now you need to extract the files from the archive. To do this, you can use an archiver such as WinRar. Also on our website there is an article on the free Zipeg program for Windows. It allows you to extract files from the archive. The article is available at.

Unzip the files from the archive into some temporary folder. After that, copy them (there will be 2 files: " Russian.ini" And " russian.chm") to the folder " langs". To do this, open " My computer" (or press the keys on your keyboard " Win+E"; key " Win"has a system icon" Windows" and is usually located next to the " key Ctrl"), select the drive that you selected when installing the program (if you installed the program in the default folder, then most likely it is the "C:" drive). Then go to the " Program Files", find the program installation folder " FileType Verifier", and in it you will find the folder " langs".

Let's imagine a situation where you were sent an important document, after which the sender went offline. After downloading the file, you discover that it does not have an extension. Of course, in this case it is better to clarify the information with the sender of the file, but it is not always possible to contact him. Then you need to determine the extension yourself to open this file. This article will look at ways to accomplish this task.

How to find out the file extension?

If the file extension has been lost, we must open the same file using Notepad to view the contents, but it is better to use the free Notepad++ program, because when opening large files, Notepad stops responding and takes a very long time to load the text.

Let's take 7 files:

img_jpg;
img_gif;
music;
document;
archive.zip;
rar archive;
program.exe.

Images

We open the first one, for example img, and see a set of incomprehensible letters and symbols. Let's turn our attention to the first line with the inscription ‰PNG. This means png.

In the second image we will see the following:

This means that this file is in jpg (jpeg) format.

If you have a GIF file, the program will display GIF89a.

Music

How can I find out what extension an audio file has? It's not that difficult to do.

Opening Notepad, we will see the following symbols (image below), which tells us that this file belongs to the MP3 format.

If you see the inscription OggS, then you know that you are faced with

Documents

It is worth noting that all programs (tables, orders, materials, etc.) will have a single inscription “RP” if you have Microsoft OFFICE 2003 and lower or “RK” if you have Microsoft OFFICE version 2007 and higher. Next we see the inscription .xml, which tells us that this is a product of MS. After that, we simply go through all the programs, from Doc to Pptx. This significantly increases the time it takes to find the required format, but then you will definitely be able to find the type you need.

If you are too lazy to go through all the types, then you can use the online resource Online TrID File Identifier, which will be discussed below.

Video recording

To find out the extension of the video file, we must open it in Notepad++, where we will see the following entries indicating that this is an MP4 video.

If you encounter an AVI, a corresponding entry will appear.

Program

How to recognize a file without an extension?

When opening the contents of the program file at the very beginning, we can observe a short MZ entry, which tells us that this is undoubtedly an exe file.

Online TrID File Identifier

If you don’t want to download Notepad++, or you’re just too lazy to right-click and then left-click, then here’s a service that will help you find out the file extension. This is not at all difficult to do; to do this, follow these simple steps.

You need to select a file and click the "Start" button. The resource will accurately show the type of file that was downloaded, the name of the program, and a link to information about the product.

Done, now you can safely install the lost extension.

How to install the extension?

In order to set the file type, you need to right-click on the file and rename it, adding a period and the file type to the end of the name. Attention! You cannot put spaces in the extension.

Are there other ways to find the file format?

Yes, there are a large number of resources, programs and manuals. They will tell you how to find out the file extension.

I renamed the file, but nothing changed. What to do?

In this case, check that the extension is spelled correctly. For example, to rename in MS Word, you need to write not doc, but docx.

You can also double-click on the file with the left mouse button and open it using the desired program from the list of installed ones, select it in the MS store, or find the program on your computer if it is not in the list.

You may not have a program installed that supports this extension. Download and install this program.

Can there be errors in online resources? Where can I find the file extension?

Yes, they definitely can. No service is immune from algorithm errors. But if you are afraid that the resource will make a mistake, then just do everything manually.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You were introduced to methods that will help you find out what extension a file has. Now you can install it on your computer. This information can be very useful for any computer user, because anyone can encounter such a problem.

Surely everyone has come across a file without an extension? Do you have any questions about how to open it? One way is to just guess and try to change the file extension to different file types and try to open the file. Sometimes it works, but sometimes you're unlucky and won't be able to guess right. And the method of scientific poking can take a fair amount of time, if of course you are persistent, and you desperately need to open this file

In this article, I'll show you a quick and more accurate way to determine which file type you can use. In order to do this, I created several test files, PDF, JPEG, MP3, EXE and DLL, and simply erased their extension. Obviously, your file may be a different type, but the procedure will be the same for any file type. I chose the test files completely randomly
For this procedure you need to know HEX– file code. Well, are you already scared and thinking how abstruse all this is? No, for this we need a text editor, such as standard Notebook, or you can download (I even recommend doing this, it is much more functional and works faster) Notepad++ .

Opening files without extension

Now we just open files without an extension in a test editor, I use Notepad++, but the method is the same for everyone.

First in line PDF test and we see in the very first lines information about the expansion in explicit form.

And we see in JPEG at the beginning of the line, which is not clear JFIF, V DLL And EXE – MZ, A MP3– ID3. Next, the Internet will help us, we enter a phrase into the search engine, for example ID3 format, or JFIF extension. And we'll see what ID3- this is from English. Identify an MP3, some metadata format, but it doesn’t matter, it’s probably an mp3 file. Upon request JFIF received JPEG File Interchange Format, some specification, MZ– executable file format EXE And DLL. That is, the first lines contain all the information we need, and we can easily open any file without the extension

Overall, I think it will be much faster to figure this out than randomly trying different file extensions without any idea. If you still can't figure out what file you have, leave a comment and I'll try to help. Enjoy!

1. Click "FILE" or "URL" button to switch between local files or online files. Click the Select Files button to select a local file or enter the URL of an online file.

2. Click "Analyze Now!" to start analysis. The analysis results will be listed in the Analysis Results section.

Near:

Not sure what format your file is in? Simply download it and let our server analyze the file's binary signatures to determine what exactly your file is formatting.

The analysis results will show all possible file formats. For example: If you submit a DOCX file, the analysis results will identify both the DOCX and ZIP format file. This is because DOCX documents are stored in Open Packaging Convention (OPC) packages, which are ZIP files containing XML and other data files. The DOCX file can be renamed to a ZIP file and opened using WinZIP software.