Hash Generator
Type text or pick a file to get its MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 and SHA-512 checksums.
Type some text or choose a file to see its hashes.
Processed on your device — nothing is sent anywhere.
How it works
- Type or paste text into the box — the four hashes update as you type.
- To hash a file instead, choose it with the file picker; the checksums are computed from the file bytes on your device.
- Click Copy next to any hash to put the hex value on your clipboard.
Frequently asked questions
- Which hash should I use?
- For anything security-related, use SHA-256 or SHA-512 — both are current, collision-resistant standards. MD5 and SHA-1 are broken for security purposes and should only be used for non-adversarial checksums, such as detecting accidental file corruption or matching a legacy checksum a vendor published.
- Is my text or file uploaded anywhere?
- No. The SHA hashes are computed with your browser’s built-in Web Crypto API and MD5 with a small script on this page, all locally on your device. Nothing is sent to a server, logged or stored.
- Why does my hash differ from another tool’s result?
- The usual causes are invisible input differences: a trailing newline or space, Windows CRLF versus Unix LF line endings, or a different text encoding. This tool hashes text as UTF-8 with exactly the characters you typed. For files, the bytes are hashed as-is, so results match any standard tool.
- Can a hash be reversed to get the original text back?
- No — hashing is a one-way function, and the original input cannot be computed from the digest. However, attackers can guess-and-check common inputs against precomputed tables, which is why short passwords hashed with fast algorithms like MD5 are easy to crack. For storing passwords, use a dedicated slow algorithm such as bcrypt or Argon2, not a plain hash.
- How do I verify a downloaded file’s checksum?
- Pick the downloaded file with the file picker here and compare the computed hash against the value published on the vendor’s download page, using the same algorithm — usually SHA-256. If every character matches, the file arrived intact and unmodified. Even a single flipped bit in the file produces a completely different hash.
About this tool
This hash generator computes MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 digests for text or files, all at once. Type or paste text and the four checksums update on every keystroke; pick a file and its bytes are hashed exactly as they are on disk. Each result is shown as a lowercase hex string with a one-click copy button.
The SHA family is computed with the Web Crypto API built into every modern browser, and MD5 — which Web Crypto deliberately omits — with a small local script. Text is encoded as UTF-8 before hashing, matching the behavior of standard command-line tools like sha256sum. Because everything runs on your device, nothing you type or select is uploaded, which matters when the input is a config file, an API payload, or anything else you would rather not paste into a random website’s server.
Typical uses: verifying that a downloaded installer matches the SHA-256 checksum a vendor published, generating cache keys or content fingerprints during development, deduplicating files by comparing digests, checking whether two environments really have identical copies of a config, and reproducing a hash from documentation to confirm you understand what exactly gets hashed. Having all four algorithms side by side also helps when you have a checksum of unknown type — its length usually identifies the algorithm (32 hex characters for MD5, 64 for SHA-256, 128 for SHA-512).
When results do not match another tool, the input almost always differs invisibly: a trailing newline added by an editor, CRLF versus LF line endings, or a byte-order mark at the start of a file. Hash the raw file rather than copy-pasted text when precision matters. And choose algorithms deliberately — SHA-256 is the safe default today, while MD5 and SHA-1 belong only in non-security contexts like legacy checksum matching.