What is the TEXT file format?
A .text file is a plain text document functionally identical to the common .txt format - both carry MIME type text/plain and contain unformatted, human-readable character sequences. The .text extension is simply an alternative spelling that appears in several specific contexts.
On macOS, TextEdit can save files with the .text extension, and some Unix command-line tools produce .text output naturally. Ruby on Rails projects have historically used .text.erb for plain-text email templates, where the .text part signals the non-HTML variant of a message. Some older Unix programs also adopted the longer spelling to distinguish generated text from binary files.
The files have no binary structure: content is an unstructured sequence of characters separated by line endings - LF on Unix and macOS, CRLF on Windows, CR on old Mac OS. There are no mandatory magic bytes, though an optional BOM may appear at the start (EF BB BF for UTF-8, FF FE for UTF-16 LE). Most .text files are UTF-8 or plain ASCII without a BOM.
Any application that opens .txt files handles .text equally well - Windows Notepad, macOS TextEdit, Visual Studio Code, Vim, nano, and every modern code editor treat the two extensions as interchangeable. Operating systems that auto-associate .txt with a text editor may not recognize .text by default, requiring a manual 'Open With' step.
Security & safety
RISK: LOWPlain text files cannot contain executable code and cannot harm a system by being opened. The only risk is if a .text file contains social-engineering content (instructions to run malicious commands). Opening a .text file in any editor is safe.
Format details
in a nutshell- Ruby on Rails plain-text email template - Rails uses .text.erb (or .text.html.erb) as a file naming convention for plain-text email view templates; not a distinct binary format.
Programs that open TEXT files
Windows3 apps
Windows Notepad
Built-in Double-click the file or right-click → Open with → Notepad. Windows may not recognize .text by default - use 'Open with' if double-click fails. 
Notepad
Open-source Open directly - Notepad++ handles any text encoding and shows line endings, file size, and encoding in the status bar. 
Visual Studio Code
Open-source Open any .text file; VS Code auto-detects encoding and shows it in the status bar. 
macOS2 apps
TextEdit
Built-in Open with TextEdit; ensure it opens in plain-text mode (Format → Make Plain Text) to avoid RTF conversion. 
Linux2 apps
gedit
Open-source Open via gedit filename.text or drag into gedit window. GNOME default text editor. 
Technical details
deep spec| MIME type | text/plain |
| Character encoding | UTF-8 or ASCII (most common); also UTF-16 LE/BE, ISO-8859-1, and other legacy encodings |
| Line endings | LF (Unix/macOS), CRLF (Windows), CR (classic Mac OS) |
| Byte Order Mark | Optional - UTF-8 BOM: EF BB BF; UTF-16 LE BOM: FF FE; UTF-16 BE BOM: FE FF; most plain-text files carry no BOM |
| Structure | Unstructured character sequence; no header, footer, or embedded metadata |
| Functional equivalence | Identical to .txt - same MIME type, same content; .text is an informal alternative extension used in specific contexts |
| Typical file size | 100 bytes - 50 MB; most files under 1 MB |
| Platform | Windows, macOS, Linux, Unix - readable by any text editor |
| Use contexts | Ruby on Rails plain-text email templates (.text.erb), macOS TextEdit output, Unix tool-generated text files |
| Encoding detection | Inferred by byte-pattern analysis or user locale; no formal BOM requirement |
| OS file association | Most operating systems do not auto-associate .text with a text editor (unlike .txt); may require manual 'Open With' on first use |
| File size limit | No format-imposed limit; constrained by operating system and available memory |
| Released | 1960s (plain text as a computing concept); .text extension informal |
| Open standard | Yes · royalty-free |
| Specification | www.rfc-editor.org |
TEXT conversions
Community Q&A
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