Some of you might be wondering if it’s safe to change the file extensions of certain files. Again, for those not reading my blog and happens to come by this post by accident, a file extension is the letters that you see right after the dot in a file like .exe, .doc, .txt, etc.

So why is there a need to change some file extensions? To change file formats of course. There are certain files that you don’t actually need a converter in order to change the file format. For example, if you want to change an MP3 file to WAV to be able to play it back on your mobile phone, you need a converter in order to do that. However, if you want to open a word document in notepad automatically without right clicking the file and choosing “open with”, you can just change the .doc to .txt by renaming the file, you don’t have to go through any document converter (of course, there are certain documents that won’t look right in notepad so there are times that you would still be needing document converters). This is changing a file format by changing the file extension.

It’s always safe to change a file format by renaming the file extension but always remember to backup the original file. Changing the file format without backing up can sometimes lead to the file being corrupted so you have to do so at your own risk.