MD5 / SHA hash generator
Type once and get MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 and SHA-512 together. Input is hashed as UTF-8 bytes.
How to use
Start typing or paste — the digests update automatically, or press Compute to force a run. Use the copy button on any row to grab that hash.
Which algorithm should you use
- MD5 is fast and everywhere — file checksums, legacy password digests. It is broken for collision resistance, so never use it where tampering or passwords are involved.
- SHA-1 is also unsafe (a real collision was published in 2017). Old Git versions used it for object IDs; today it exists for compatibility only.
- SHA-256 is the current default: signatures, certificates, blockchains, API signing.
- SHA-512 produces a longer digest and can be faster than SHA-256 on 64-bit hardware.
Hashing is not encryption
A hash is one-way: you cannot recover the input from the digest, which is both its value and its limit. For passwords, do not hash directly — add a salt and use bcrypt, scrypt or Argon2, otherwise a rainbow table undoes a weak password in seconds.
FAQ
SHA rows say "not supported in this environment" — why?
Browsers only expose crypto.subtle in a secure context (HTTPS or localhost). Opening the HTML file directly from disk is not secure, so the SHA family cannot run — deployed over HTTPS it works normally. MD5 is plain JavaScript and works anywhere.
Why does my local MD5 differ from this one?
Almost always an encoding difference. This tool hashes UTF-8 bytes; another implementation using a legacy code page will disagree on non-ASCII text. Pure ASCII always matches.
Can it hash a file?
This version handles text. File hashing (SHA-256 of large downloads, for example) is a frequent request — send it via the contact page.