11--- 
22description : Describes how PowerShell uses character encoding for input and output of string data. 
33Locale : en-US 
4- ms.date : 03/09/2023 
4+ ms.date : 10/21/2025 
55online version : https://learn.microsoft.com/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_character_encoding?view=powershell-7.5&WT.mc_id=ps-gethelp 
66schema : 2.0.0 
77title : about_Character_Encoding 
1717
1818Unicode is a worldwide character-encoding standard. The system uses Unicode
1919exclusively for character and string manipulation. For a detailed description
20- of all aspects of Unicode, refer to [ The Unicode Standard] [ 01 ] .
20+ of all aspects of Unicode, refer to [ The Unicode Standard] [ 07 ] .
2121
2222Windows supports Unicode and traditional character sets. Traditional character
2323sets, such as Windows code pages, use 8-bit values or combinations of 8-bit
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ In PowerShell 5.1, the **Encoding** parameter supports the following values:
9191-  ` UTF7 `  Uses UTF-7.
9292-  ` UTF8 `  Uses UTF-8 (with BOM).
9393
94- In general, Windows PowerShell uses the Unicode [ UTF-16LE] [ 03 ]  encoding by
94+ In general, Windows PowerShell uses the Unicode [ UTF-16LE] [ 06 ]  encoding by
9595default. However, the default encoding used by cmdlets in Windows PowerShell
9696is not consistent.
9797
@@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ PowerShell defaults to `utf8NoBOM` for all output.
174174Beginning with PowerShell 6.2, the ** Encoding**  parameter also allows numeric
175175IDs of registered code pages (like ` -Encoding 1251 ` ) or string names of
176176registered code pages (like ` -Encoding "windows-1251" ` ). For more information,
177- see the .NET documentation for [ Encoding.CodePage] [ 04 ] .
177+ see the .NET documentation for [ Encoding.CodePage] [ 08 ] .
178178
179179Starting with PowerShell 7.4, you can use the ` ANSI `  value for the ** Encoding** 
180180parameter to pass the numeric ID for the current culture's ANSI code page
@@ -189,7 +189,7 @@ encoding behavior.
189189-  ` $OutputEncoding ` 
190190-  ` $PSApplicationOutputEncoding ` 
191191
192- For more information, see [ about_Preference_Variables] [ 05 ] .
192+ For more information, see [ about_Preference_Variables] [ 04 ] .
193193
194194Beginning in PowerShell 5.1, the redirection operators (` > `  and ` >> ` ) call the
195195` Out-File `  cmdlet. Therefore, you can set the default encoding of them using
@@ -216,24 +216,28 @@ $PSDefaultParameterValues['*:Encoding'] = 'utf8'
216216>  behave the same way even when run by another user, on a different computer,
217217>  or in a different version of PowerShell.
218218
219- The automatic variables ` $OutputEncoding `  and ` $PSApplicationOutputEncoding ` 
220- affects the encoding PowerShell uses to when sending data into and reading
221- from external programs respectively. They have no effect on the encoding that
222- the output redirection operators and PowerShell cmdlets use to save to files.
219+ The automatic variables ` $OutputEncoding `  affects the encoding PowerShell uses
220+ to when sending data to external programs. The ` $PSApplicationOutputEncoding ` 
221+ variable affects the encoding PowerShell uses to read data from external
222+ programs. They have no effect on the encoding that the output redirection
223+ operators and PowerShell cmdlets use to save to files.
223224
224225## See also  
225226
226- -  [ about_Preference_Variables] [ 05 ] 
227- -  [ Byte order mark] ( https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark ) 
228- -  [ Code Pages - Win32 apps] ( /windows/win32/intl/code-pages ) 
229- -  [ Encoding.CodePage] [ 04 ] 
230- -  [ Introduction to character encoding in .NET] ( /dotnet/standard/base-types/character-encoding-introduction ) 
231- -  [ The Unicode Standard] [ 01 ] 
232- -  [ UTF-16LE] [ 03 ] 
227+ -  [ about_Preference_Variables] [ 04 ] 
228+ -  [ Byte order mark] [ 05 ] 
229+ -  [ Code Pages - Win32 apps] [ 03 ] 
230+ -  [ Encoding.CodePage] [ 08 ] 
231+ -  [ Introduction to character encoding in .NET] [ 01 ] 
232+ -  [ The Unicode Standard] [ 07 ] 
233+ -  [ UTF-16LE] [ 06 ] 
233234
234235<!--  link references --> 
235- [ 01 ] : https://www.unicode.org/ standard/standard.html 
236+ [ 01 ] : /dotnet/ standard/base-types/character-encoding-introduction 
236237[ 02 ] : /globalization/encoding/byte-order-mark 
237- [ 03 ] : https://wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-16 
238- [ 04 ] : /dotnet/api/system.text.encoding.codepage 
239- [ 05 ] : about_Preference_Variables.md 
238+ [ 03 ] : /windows/win32/intl/code-pages 
239+ [ 04 ] : about_Preference_Variables.md 
240+ [ 05 ] : https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark 
241+ [ 06 ] : https://wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-16 
242+ [ 07 ] : https://www.unicode.org/standard/standard.html 
243+ [ 08 ] : xref:System.Text.Encoding.CodePage%2A 
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