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Is the a tool (mac or online) that can help me to find out the character set of a text file, and then convert it to utf-8 ?

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  • This is an excellent answer to your question. Commented Mar 15, 2023 at 13:51

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If you are using Windows try downloading Notepad++. It should recognize the encoding and offers several conversions including UTF-8.

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  • Nice tool, thank you!! (my score is 11 so I can't boost your). Commented Mar 24, 2010 at 20:31
  • if you need to convert your file: rishida.net/tools/conversion Commented Jun 23, 2014 at 14:44
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  • for linux, use file -i filename
  • for mac, use file -I filename

For instance,

$ file -i readme.txt readme.txt: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

BTW, for converting, use iconv， for instance,

iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 filename
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  • Thanks, but it does not convert Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 21:15
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    In speaking of converting, use the command iconv. For instance, iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 filename Commented Jun 2, 2015 at 7:03
  • With file command, why did both two files encoded with big5 and gb2312 present iso-8859-1? Commented Feb 11, 2018 at 6:24
  • This answer is incorrect. file -i filename will fail to detect the charset on some files, which have mostly characters from one set, but some from another. Commented Aug 28, 2024 at 22:00

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