Detect media file types

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Detect media file types

Postby mcb » Sun Oct 31, 2021 5:53 am

I would love it if there was a way to detect well-known media file types, like JPEG, PNG and MOV. My goal is to add/restore the correct file extension. Ideally, there would be a "Detected Type" column that would show content in a different color if the detected type was different from the extension type.

The reason for this in my case is that Apple's iPhone namespace extension (or whatever it is, it's not a real filesystem from what I can tell) for Windows can sometimes mess with file names and types, and files get copied from the phone to the PC as JPG instead of PNG, or vice versa. I noticed this again today, and looking back I can see this in files from years ago. I have a hack to fix this, but it is not perfect: if I rename all extensions to JPG, Bulk Rename Utility will show some EXIF metadata for "real" JPEGs, and not for PNGs, so I can sort, select and rename. However, this mechanism is not perfect, as there are also other file types, and JPEGs also exist without EXIF data (e.g. from Messenger apps).
mcb
 
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Re: Detect media file types

Postby Renamox » Sat Jan 01, 2022 10:10 pm

It seems like a rather weird request, to be honest. I don't think you need a bulk rename utility to deal with your problem, since where are countless media managers out there that can help you. Use one of them to separate the fake PNGs from real ones, and then rename the fakes with Everything or BRU.

For example (and I'm no expert on this, so I'm sure there are better alternatives), XnView MP, a popular free image viewer, already has at least some of the functionality you need. If you go to the browser view, you can easily look up the EXIF data and the file's true type. Here's a quick image, and as you can see, in the View As Thumbnails and Details mode, the program even automatically sorted the formats for me:

Image

Hope this helps.
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Re: Detect media file types

Postby Renamox » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:08 pm

Damn, with my haphazard posting habits not being able to edit the posts can be annoying. I just checked for replies and saw that mixed up the filenames in the earlier image. I hope you got the meaning and here's a better image to show how program detects the fake extension correctly:
Image
Renamox
 
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