▷ How to change the file extension in windows 10

Changing the file extension in Windows 10 or any other system can leave us unusable the file where we apply the changes. Normally this is not aimed at normal users, it is more generally we cannot perform these actions. If we take a file and write an extension at the end, we will not notice any change in the file extension. These actions are especially useful for developers who are working with different files and formats and need to constantly change their extensions.

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Sometimes we do need at any given time to change the extension of a file that for example we have downloaded from the Internet and has lost its format or comes without an extension. This is usually done by users who upload not too legal files to the Internet so that they are not detected as harmful files.

In this step by step we will see how to change the file extension in Windows 10. It is applicable to any file that we have.

Enable the option to show file extensions in Windows 10

Windows by default does not have this option active so I have to perform the following procedure to activate it:

• We are going to go to the start menu and write " Control Panel ". Next, we click on the highlighted search result. Once inside it we change the appearance of the window to " Icon View " We select the option of " File Explorer Options "

• Next, we go to the " view " tab of the window that we have accessed. We locate the option " Hide file extensions for known file types " and deactivate it. We apply and accept the changes

Change file extension in Windows 10 graphically

Now we are able to modify the extensions of our files. For this we will do the following:

• We select the file that we want to modify and open its options by right-clicking. We choose “ change name ” and we can already modify its extension.

If for example you do the same as us, the file will lose its format and we will not see the content inside. To reverse the situation we can modify its extension again and leave it as it was.

It is advisable to make a backup copy of the file before modifying its extension

Change file extension in Windows 10 with PowerShell (or CMD)

In addition to the graphical form, we can also do this through the PowerShell command console or through a command prompt. Also, for this method we don't need to activate the option to show file extensions, because in the console this is done by default. For this we will do the following:

• We press the key combination " Windows + X " to open the options of the start menu We choose the option " PowerShell "

Now we must know three different types of commands that we will use:

CD

It is used to access a folder through a path. For example, if we write: cd C: \ Users \ user \ downloads we would access the downloads folder on our computer

cd..

It serves to get out of the directory where we are. Note that when you are inside a folder, the path is shown in the terminal

ren

with this command we will change the name or extension of the file that we want. For example: ren tutorial.docx tutorial.txt This way the file will be modified in its extension.

In this way we can also change the extension of our file. In these two ways we will be able to change the extension of any file on our computer. We must be careful with this, since we could render the files we touch useless.

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And you, why did you need to do this procedure? Tell us in the comments why you used the file extension change. If you have any problems, please let us know.