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Hash Generator

Type text, or choose a file, and see all five common hashes at once. Paste the checksum a download page publishes and the tool tells you whether your file matches — the quick way to confirm an installer or ISO arrived complete and unaltered.

Hash

Paste the hash the download page publishes

Type some text to see its hashes.

How to use this tool

  1. Choose Text or File.
  2. Type or paste the text, or choose the file. Text is hashed as you type; a file is hashed once it has been read.
  3. To verify a download, paste the checksum from the publisher’s site into the comparison box. A match confirms the file is identical.
  4. Copy the hash you need, or copy all five.

Formula and method

Output length

MD5 128 bits · SHA-1 160 · SHA-256 256 · SHA-384 384 · SHA-512 512

Each hex character carries 4 bits, so a SHA-256 hash is 64 characters long. The tool uses the length of a pasted checksum to tell you which algorithm it is.

Worked examples

The text “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”

  1. MD5: 9e107d9d372bb6826bd81d3542a419d6
  2. SHA-256: d7a8fbb307d7809469ca9abcb0082e4f8d5651e46d3cdb762d02d0bf37c9e592

Adding a full stop at the end changes every character of both hashes — a small change in the input gives an unrelated hash.

Notes and limitations

  • Files are read by your browser and hashed in memory. Nothing is uploaded, which matters when the file is a private document or a large installer.
  • Text is hashed as UTF-8 bytes, exactly as typed, so the result matches sha256sum, md5sum or certutil on the same text. A trailing space or line break changes the hash.
  • MD5 and SHA-1 are broken for security purposes: collisions can be manufactured. They remain fine for spotting accidental corruption, which is why download pages still publish them. Use SHA-256 or stronger for anything security-related.
  • Do not use any of these hashes to store passwords. Password storage needs a slow, salted algorithm such as Argon2, scrypt or bcrypt.
  • SHA hashes come from the browser’s built-in Web Crypto. MD5, which Web Crypto leaves out, is implemented on this page and tested against the RFC 1321 test suite.
  • Very large files are limited by your device’s memory, because the whole file is read before hashing.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check a downloaded file’s SHA-256?

Choose File, select the download, and paste the SHA-256 value from the publisher’s website into the comparison box. “Match” means the file is byte-for-byte what the publisher released.

Can a hash be reversed to get the original text?

No. A hash is one-way. Short or common inputs can sometimes be found by guessing and comparing, which is why stored password hashes need salting and slow algorithms.

Why does my hash differ from another tool’s?

Almost always because the input differs: a trailing newline that a command such as echo adds, Windows line endings, or a different text encoding. Here the text is hashed exactly as typed, in UTF-8.

Which algorithm should I use?

SHA-256 for anything new. Use MD5 or SHA-1 only to compare against a checksum that was published in that algorithm.

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