BOM Tool

Detect, add, or strip the byte-order mark (BOM) on text files.

Tool Media & Files Updated Apr 18, 2026
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How to Use
  1. Drop a text file.
  2. See detected encoding / BOM.
  3. Export stripped or BOM-prefixed copy.
Input
⟐
Drop text or
Text, JSON, CSV, etc.
Detected
Waiting

BOM signatures

UTF-8
EF BB BF
UTF-16 BE
FE FF
UTF-16 LE
FF FE
UTF-32 BE
00 00 FE FF
UTF-32 LE
FF FE 00 00
No BOM
Preferred
For UTF-8 non-Windows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why strip BOM?

Some Unix tools, JSON parsers, and PHP includes choke on leading BOM bytes.

Why add BOM?

Windows-native apps (Excel CSV, Notepad) auto-detect UTF-8 only if BOM is present.

Common Use Cases

CSV for Excel

Add UTF-8 BOM so Excel doesn't mangle accents.

JSON API

Strip BOM before parsing.

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