Is my uploaded file sent to any server?

No! The detection algorithm runs 100% locally in your web browser using HTML5 File API and JavaScript TextDecoder.

File Encoding Detector

Detect UTF-8, ASCII, UTF-16, and ISO character set encodings.

Document & Archive Studio

Document & Markup Converter

MARKDOWN / HTML INPUT

CONVERTED PLAIN TEXT OUTPUT

Sample Document Heading

This is a sample text formatted with bold, italics, and a list:
• First Item
• Second Item
• Third Item

About File Encoding Detector

The File Encoding Detector inspects uploaded text/code files and pasted hex payloads to identify Byte Order Marks (BOM), character set encodings (UTF-8, UTF-16 LE/BE, UTF-32 LE/BE, ASCII, ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252), line endings (CRLF vs LF), and hex byte dumps. Convert any document payload to clean UTF-8 or UTF-8 with BOM in 1-click.

Step-by-Step Guide

How to Use File Encoding Detector

Step 1

Upload a file or paste text/hex content into the input box.

Step 2

Inspect the detected encoding name, confidence score, and BOM status in the result banner.

Step 3

View the first 128 bytes in the Hex Dump Inspector.

Step 4

Click "Download UTF-8" or "UTF-8 with BOM" to convert and save a clean version.

Industry Scenarios

Practical Use Cases for File Encoding Detector

Debugging Character Encoding Bugs

Fix weird broken characters (, Ã©) caused by opening ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252 files in UTF-8 applications.

Inspecting Hidden Byte Order Marks (BOM)

Detect hidden EF BB BF bytes in UTF-8 files that cause JSON parsing errors, PHP header warnings, or shell script syntax errors.

Cross-Platform File Normalization

Identify Windows CRLF vs Unix LF line endings and convert text documents to clean UTF-8 before pushing to Git repositories.

Sample Data & Transformation

Input & Output Examples

Detecting UTF-8 with BOM File

Input Sample:

File Upload: index.csv (First Bytes: EF BB BF 4E 61 6D 65)

Processed Result:

Detected: UTF-8 with BOM (100% Confidence) • Line Endings: CRLF (Windows)

Technical Capabilities

Key Features & Performance

✓Detects UTF-8, UTF-8 BOM, UTF-16 LE/BE, UTF-32 LE/BE, ASCII, ISO-8859-1, and Windows-1252.
✓Interactive Hex & Byte Inspector displaying first 128 bytes in Hex, Decimal, and ASCII.
✓BOM signature auto-highlighting (EF BB BF, FF FE, FE FF, etc.).
✓Detects line ending formats (CRLF, LF, CR) and NULL byte ratio.
✓Supports file upload (.txt, .csv, .json, .xml, .html, .py, .cpp, .bin) and direct text paste.
✓1-Click convert and download clean UTF-8 or UTF-8 with BOM files.
✓100% Client-Side browser memory processing for maximum security.

Technical Glossary

Key Terminology & Definitions

Byte Order Mark (BOM)

A sequence of magic bytes (such as EF BB BF for UTF-8 or FF FE for UTF-16 LE) at the beginning of a text file that signals byte order and encoding format to software applications.

UTF-8 Character Encoding

A variable-width character encoding capable of encoding all 1,114,112 valid character code points in Unicode using 1 to 4 one-byte code units.

Frequently Asked Questions (PAA)

File Encoding Detector FAQs

Some legacy or strict JSON parsers expect raw UTF-8 data without a leading BOM. When they encounter the 0xEF 0xBB 0xBF byte sequence at line 1 column 1, they throw a syntax error.