# Default encoding for filebeat

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/default-encoding-for-filebeat/207968>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** filebeat\
**Created:** [November 14, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/default-encoding-for-filebeat/207968 "2019-11-14T22:50:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Karthik\_Ramachandran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f19dbf/32.png) [@Karthik\_Ramachandran](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Karthik_Ramachandran)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/default-encoding-for-filebeat/207968/1 "2019-11-14T22:50:54Z")

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Dear All

I'm trying to find the default encoding when we don't set anything specific in prospector. I was referring to the documentation "[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/6.8/filebeat-input-log.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/6.8/filebeat-input-log.html)", but could not find a reference of what is default.

The files we create are UTF8NoBOM. I do see them classfied as UTF8 when I open in a text editor like notepad, and also observed filebeat reads them to our redis target. But had faced a issue today when some formatted contents were written to the file.

Queries

1. What is default encoding the filebeat reads a file
2. "The "plain" -- does not validate or transform any input " - How the special charters or any specific character encoded values are treated?

Thanks for clarification.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 10:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/default-encoding-for-filebeat/207968/2 "2019-12-12T22:51:03Z")

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