Hash Generator
Generate MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 and SHA-512 hashes from text or files. All client-side — nothing is transmitted.
Generate Cryptographic Hashes
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Privacy note
All hashing is performed in your browser. Text and files are never transmitted to any server.
MD5 vs SHA-1 vs SHA-256 vs SHA-512
These four functions differ in output length and, crucially, in security. MD5 produces a 128-bit digest and SHA-1 a 160-bit one; both are fast but cryptographically broken — researchers can craft two different inputs with the same hash (a collision), so neither should be trusted for signatures, certificates, or password storage. They remain useful as quick checksums for deduplication or detecting accidental corruption, where an attacker isn't in the picture. SHA-256 and SHA-512 belong to the SHA-2 family and have no practical collision attacks; they are the current default for file integrity, TLS, and digital signatures. SHA-512 isn't "more secure" for most purposes — it's a wider digest that can be faster on 64-bit hardware. When in doubt, reach for SHA-256.
Why you can't "decrypt" a hash
Hashing is a one-way function. It deliberately discards information: a multi-gigabyte file and a single character both collapse to the same fixed-length digest, so there is simply no way to reverse the process and recover the original bytes — the information is gone. Tools that claim to "decrypt" an MD5 or SHA hash are really just lookup tables: they precompute hashes of common words and passwords and match yours against the list. That works only because the input was guessable. A long, random input has no entry in any table, which is exactly why unique, high-entropy secrets resist this attack. If you need to get the original value back, you wanted encryption, not hashing.
Salting and why hashing isn't encryption
Encryption is reversible with a key and protects confidentiality; hashing is irreversible and protects integrity. They solve different problems, so don't substitute one for the other. For passwords, a plain SHA-256 hash is still risky: identical passwords produce identical hashes, exposing them to rainbow-table lookups. A salt — a unique random value stored alongside each hash — forces every password to hash differently, defeating precomputed tables. Even then, fast hashes are the wrong tool for passwords because attackers can try billions per second. Use a deliberately slow, salted algorithm such as bcrypt, scrypt, or Argon2. HMAC, available in the tab above, is yet another use of hashing: it mixes in a secret key to prove a message came from someone who holds that key — authenticity, not just integrity.
Frequently Asked Questions
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