By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: April 23, 2024
Mac/macOS FAQ: How do I show a file’s character encoding?
Solution
On macOS, you show a file’s character encoding using the -I
option of the file
command:
$ file -I file.txt file.txt: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Here are a few more examples that show the file
command’s output, with and without the -I
option:
$ file 00-intro.adoc 00-intro.adoc: UTF-8 Unicode text, with very long lines $ file -I 00-intro.adoc 00-intro.adoc: text/plain; charset=utf-8 $ file /etc/passwd /etc/passwd: ASCII text $ file -I /etc/passwd /etc/passwd: text/plain; charset=us-ascii $ file -I /Users/al /users/al: inode/directory; charset=binary
In summary, if you wanted to learn how to see a the character encoding of a file on a Mac/macOS system, I hope these examples are helpful.