Binary Extensions

Check if a file or extension is binary, and iterate over 250+ known binary file types including images, videos, archives, and executables. Python port of binary-extensions npm package.

Features

• Immutable collection of hundreds of known binary file extensions
• Fast membership checks using frozenset
• Case-insensitive and dot-aware checks
• Works for both extensions and full file paths
• Supports dotfiles (e.g., .DS_Store)
• Zero dependencies, minimal overhead

Installation

pip install binary-extensions

Or using uv:

uv add binary-extensions

Usage

Check if an extension is binary

from binary_extensions import is_binary_extension

is_binary_extension("png")      # True
is_binary_extension(".jpg")     # True (dot-aware)
is_binary_extension("PDF")      # True (case-insensitive)
is_binary_extension("txt")      # False

Check if a file path has a binary extension

from binary_extensions import is_binary_path

is_binary_path("image.png")                    # True
is_binary_path("/path/to/file.JPG")            # True (case-insensitive)
is_binary_path("document.pdf")                 # True
is_binary_path("document.txt")                 # False
is_binary_path(".DS_Store")                     # True (dotfile support)

Access the list of binary extensions

from binary_extensions import BINARY_EXTENSIONS, BINARY_EXTENSIONS_LOWER

# BINARY_EXTENSIONS is a frozenset of all known binary extensions
print(len(BINARY_EXTENSIONS))  # Number of supported extensions
"png" in BINARY_EXTENSIONS     # True
"txt" in BINARY_EXTENSIONS     # False

# BINARY_EXTENSIONS_LOWER contains all extensions in lowercase
# Useful for case-insensitive lookups without calling .lower() repeatedly
"PNG" in BINARY_EXTENSIONS_LOWER  # True (case-insensitive)

Supported Extensions

The package includes support for hundreds of binary file extensions, including:

• Images: png, jpg, gif, bmp, webp, svg, ico, and more
• Audio: mp3, wav, flac, aac, ogg, and more
• Video: mp4, avi, mkv, mov, webm, and more
• Archives: zip, tar, gz, 7z, rar, and more
• Documents: pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, and more
• Executables: exe, dll, so, dmg, appimage, and more
• Fonts: ttf, otf, woff, woff2, and more
• And many more...

Credits

This package is a Python port of the binary-extensions npm package by Sindre Sorhus.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a detailed list of changes and version history.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributing Guide for details on our code of conduct, development setup, and the process for submitting pull requests.

Support

If you find this library useful, please consider:

• ⭐ Starring the repository on GitHub to help others discover it.
• 💖 Sponsoring to support ongoing maintenance and development.

Become a Sponsor on GitHub | Support on Patreon

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Author

Y. Siva Sai Krishna

• GitHub: @ysskrishna
• LinkedIn: ysskrishna