Determining File Format

The simplest method for determining the type of a file is to see its extension.But it may happens that sometimes the extension does not match or that the file has no extension, in the case of a transfer error in an e-mail.

There are utilities to determine the type of a file from its content. These tools are usually based on a database called "Magic database file format."

FileID

This tool used command line i to retrieve the file format among many formats known.

To use, simply:

Download fileid
http://www.optimasc.com/products/fileid/index.html
Decompress binaries for Windows in a directory
Then launch the console: start/run/

cmd

Finally run the following command:

file "name of file" -m magic.db -d

TrID

TRID works similarly to FileID. To use:

Download TRID
http://mark0.net/soft-trid-e.html
Unpack binaries for Windows in a directory
Launch the console: start / run /

cmd

Finally run the following command:

trid "filename"