Presents the user with a simple scrolling window interface and offers many features. It can be minimized in the tray area until needed and uses very limited resources. User configurable telephone number formats – supports Non-US phone numbers. Hyper-links for both email and website addresses.

This table of file signatures (aka “magic numbers”) is a continuing work-in-progress. I had found little information on this in a single place, with the exception of the table in Forensic Computing: A Practitioner’s Guide by T. Sammes & B. Jenkinson (Springer, 2000); that was my inspiration to start this list in 2002. See also Wikipedia’s List of file signatures. Comments, additions, and queries can be sent to Gary Kessler at [email protected].

This list is not exhaustive although I add new files as I find them or someone contributes signatures. Interpret the table as a one-way function: the magic number generally indicates the file type whereas the file type does not always have the given magic number. If you want to know to what a particular file extension refers, check out some of these sites:

• File Extension Seeker: Metasearch engine for file extensions
• FILExt.com
• FileInfo.com
• Wotsit.org, The Programmer’s File and Data Resource
• DOT.WHAT?
• File-Extensions.org

Some other useful information:

• My software utility page contains a custom signature file based upon this list, for use with FTK, Scalpel, Simple Carver, Simple Carver Lite, and TrID.
• The File Signatures Web site searches a database based upon file extension or file signature.
• Tim Coakley’s Filesig.co.uk site, with Filesig Manager and Simple Carver. Also, see Tim’s SQLite Database Catalog page, “a repository of information used to identify specific SQLite databases and properties for research purposes.”
• Marco Pontello’s TrID – File Identifier utility designed to identify file types from their binary signatures.
• The National Archives’ PRONOM site provides on-line information about data file formats and their supporting software products, as well as their multi-platform DROID (Digital Record Object Identification) software.
• Additional details on graphics file formats can be found at The Graphics File Formats Page and the Sustainability of Digital Formats Planning for Library of Congress Collections site.
• Additional details on audio and video file formats can be found at the Sustainability of Digital Formats Planning for Library of Congress Collections site.

If you are using a Linux/MacOS/Unix system, you can use the file command to determine the file type based upon the file signature, per the system’s magic file.