File extensions decide how the files act and what you can do with them. For example, a .txt file cannot be executed on your Windows 10 PC. For that, you will need a .exe file. The same applies to any other formats whether it is a video, audio, document, extension, or almost any kind of data you can imagine. In certain situations, you might want to play a little with the file extensions, especially while creating new ones. For example, if you are into programming, creating a PHP file is as simple as creating a .txt file and renaming the .txt part to .php. The same applies to any other formats as well. Simply renaming the part after the dot it will change the extension of that file.
As already mentioned, simply changing the path after the dot can decide how the file act and what you can use that for. So, accidentally renaming the files to anything which is not the actual format of that certain file will make it completely unusable. So you should be very careful while making use of this feature. Also keep in mind that, this is not a conversion system that you can be used to simply convert files from one format to another. You cannot simply rename a .pdf file to .txt and expect it to open on your devices. File renaming is only meant to be used where it is compatible. With that being said let’s see how we can change the file extension.
Steps to Change File Extensions in Windows 10
In order to change the extension of any file, you should first see its extension which will be hidden by default on Windows 10. We will have to enable that feature so that we can see the extension part and change it as we need.
- Go to the folder where the file is in.
- Click on the down arrow (Expand the ribbon) at the top right corner of the file explorer. You may also press Ctrl + F1.
- Navigate to the View tab at the top.
- Simply check the box saying File name extensions.
That’s it. All of your files will now start showing their extensions as well. So now, to rename a file, all you have to do is right-clicking on it and then choosing Rename. Then simply change the extension part to whatever you want.
Let’s say you are learning HTML and want to create an HTML document to open it in a browser. Create a text file and rename it to something like index.html. You will notice that the icon is changed for that certain file. If you have a web browser associated to open HTML documents, you can just double-click it to open it in a browser and make changes to it to see the changes.
So, that’s how you change the extension of a file in Windows 10. Be sure to hide the file extensions by following the same steps mentioned above after you are done with the renaming. Even if you accidentally choose something random like .abc as the file extension, Windows will not stop you from doing that which will make the file completely useless. And you may not even remember the correct extension of the file to change it back if you didn’t notice it the first time. So, be a little careful while playing with it.