Why doesn't file encoding setting in VS Code work?

Question

I am using VS Code. I have a project where all the files are UTF-8. When I load the file in VS Code, it thinks it is ISO 8859-1 encoded. I can change the encoding using the option at the bottom to re-read with a different encoding, but I don't want to have to do this for every file. I want VS Code to enforce that all files are and remain UTF-8 encoded.

I go to preferences > settings > workspace tab and search for encoding. There it says UTF-8 and I have changed it from and to UTF-8 several times. But then, when I open a file, it still opens it as ISO 8859-1.

I don't know what to do. This setting should change it for all the pages in the repository, right? I am reading a .md markdown file. I am running on Windows. I would like to just set this one workspace because I have other workspaces in different encodings.

AgilePro · Accepted Answer · 2025-08-13 23:22:17Z

0

Well, I guess you have to shut down VSCode and restart it for this setting to take effect. At least that is what I did, and finally the setting took effect.

Maybe closing the project and reopening might have worked.

After I restarted, only then it appeared in the projects as ISO 8859-1 encoding. I changed it after the restart to UTF-8, and that stuck and worked. Maybe there is a display bug in VSCode that was preventing me from seeing / modifying the actual setting.

answered Aug 13 at 23:22

AgilePro

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