How to generate a hash
- Choose Text or File. For text, type or paste into the box and the hashes update as you type. For a file, drag it onto the drop area or tap to choose one.
- Read the results. MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512 appear together, each with its own copy button. For a file, its name and size are shown above the list.
- Optionally paste an expected hash into the compare box. The tool tells you whether it matches and which algorithm it belongs to.
- Switch on Uppercase letters if the system you're pasting into expects capital hex digits.
Features
- Five algorithms at once: MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512, calculated together from one input.
- Text or file input, with drag and drop for files of any type.
- Checksum comparison against all five results, with the matching algorithm highlighted.
- Progress bar for large files and a warning above 100 MB.
- Lowercase or uppercase hex output.
- One-tap copy for each hash.
- UTF-8 text hashing, the standard encoding used by other hashing tools, so text in any language gives consistent results.
Why use Fileora's hash generator
People hash things they would never upload: installers, contracts, database exports, private keys, or text containing passwords. Fileora reads the file and computes every hash inside your browser. Nothing is transmitted, stored or logged, which also means a multi-gigabyte file doesn't have to crawl over your connection first.
It's free, has no sign-up and no daily cap, and it works on phones, which is useful when you want to verify an APK or a document you've just downloaded to your mobile.
Looking for a single algorithm? The MD5 generator and SHA-256 generator put that hash first. For random IDs rather than fingerprints, try the UUID generator.
What a hash function does
A hash function turns input of any size into a short, fixed-length fingerprint. The same input always produces the same hash, and changing a single bit produces a completely different one. MD5 gives 128 bits (32 hex characters), SHA-1 gives 160 bits (40), SHA-256 gives 256 bits (64), SHA-384 gives 96 hex characters and SHA-512 gives 128.
A good hash should also make it infeasible to find two inputs with the same output, which is called a collision. Researchers have produced practical collisions for MD5 and SHA-1, so neither should be trusted where someone might craft a malicious file. The SHA-2 family, which includes SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512, has no known practical collisions.
Note that fast hashes like these are not suitable for storing passwords on their own. Password storage needs a deliberately slow algorithm designed for that job, which this tool does not provide.