I recently received a CD from a Mac client that contained files created by a previous developer. I put the CD into my disk drive, and when I went to browse the files, only about 3 or 4 had file extensions. The rest were just the file name.

I assumed these were all graphic files, so I tried to load a few in Photoshop, but they failed. What to do?

I quickly Google'd the issue, and after a few tries, I came across a link to a program called TrID by Marco Pontello. This program is run via the Windows command line, and given a file or a folder, it will scan the selected file(s) and give you the most likely file type. Also, if you add a -ae command, it will automatically rename the files with the correct extension.

Here's a sample of what I did:

C:\projects\client\design\old design>"c:\Program Files\TrID\trid.exe" * -ae

File: shaddow
100.0% (.TIF/TIFF) Tagged Image File Format Bitmap (big endian) (4000/1)

File: sight plan
100.0% (.PSD) Adobe Photoshop image (13000/1)

File: sky line
100.0% (.TIF/TIFF) Tagged Image File Format Bitmap (big endian) (4000/1)

File: South River
100.0% (.PSD) Adobe Photoshop image (13000/1)

File: Tom's church
100.0% (.PSD) Adobe Photoshop image (13000/1)

File: Tom's logo
 59.0% (.AI) Adobe Illustrator graphics (97501/2/16)

File: Tom's logo withPMS259
 59.0% (.AI) Adobe Illustrator graphics (97501/2/16)

File: web page
100.0% (.PSD) Adobe Photoshop image (13000/1)

File: web page practice
100.0% (.PSD) Adobe Photoshop image (13000/1)

I hope this helps someone else if they have the same issue down the road.

Links:

• TrID by Marco Pontello
• Download TrID
• Download TrID Definitions

NOTE: You need to also download the latest definitions database, or the program will fail, as it has nothing to compare the file to.