# Use UTF-8 as default text file encoding?

**URL:** <https://discuss.python.org/t/use-utf-8-as-default-text-file-encoding/1785>\
**Category:** Ideas\
**Created:** [May 31, 2019, 11:34am UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/use-utf-8-as-default-text-file-encoding/1785 "2019-05-31T11:34:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 17

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**Author:** ![methane](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/methane/32/43_2.png) [@methane](https://discuss.python.org/u/methane)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 12:19pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/use-utf-8-as-default-text-file-encoding/1785/17 "2019-06-05T12:19:15Z")

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I created new topic for the PEP:

> [@PEP 597: Use UTF-8 for default text file encoding](https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-597-use-utf-8-for-default-text-file-encoding/1819):
>
> Hi, all. Microsoft changed default text encoding of notepad.exe to UTF-8 from 2019 May Update! I propose to change Python’s default text encoding too, from 2021. I believe 2021 is not too early for this change. (If we release 3.9 in 2020, this PEP will applied to 3.10, although deprecation warning is raised from 3.8) Abstract Currently, TextIOWrapper uses locale.getpreferredencoding(False) (hereinafter called “locale encoding”) when encoding is not specified. This PEP proposes changing t…

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