TrID is an executable file identification utility that analyzes a file’s internal header information and compares it to a comprehensive list of file signatures. TrID can append file extensions and/or be used to analyze file types (Note: only append file extensions to access copy files). For more information on TrID, see this article on the Practical E-Records blog
Open the command line and navigate to the TrID executable file. For example, if you have the file saved in a folder on your Desktop, on the command line navigate to the drive where it’s located:
Type: Z:
cd Applications
cd Born Digital Tools
cd TrID
trid (the TrID instructions should pop up)
Then put in quite the directory you want to analyze. For example, type: trid “Z:\Desktop\1515022\CARL_WOESE\*” -v -ae
TrID supports various arguments, or command options. These options are listed when the TrID instructions pop up (see above). You can use the “-ae” flag to automatically append extensions, “-ce” flag to replace existing file extensions with guessed extensions, and/or the “-v” flag for verbose mode
It is also important to note that while TrID supports wildcard characters, and can evaluate many files with single command iterations, it is unable to simultaneously inspect the files in a directory and a subdirectory. Each directory and its subdirectories need to be evaluated separately