MD5 Hash Generator

Generate an MD5 hash from any text — or drop in a file to checksum it, and paste a known hash to verify.

Input text

13 charactersUppercase output

Drop a file or click to hash its bytesComputes the MD5 checksum from the file contents, in chunks with progress

MD5 Hash (128-bit)

Verify against a known hash

About MD5

MD5 produces a 128-bit (32-hex-character) hash and is computed here over the UTF-8 bytes of your text, matching standard md5sum output. It's widely used for checksums and cache keys, but it is not collision-resistant — never use MD5 for passwords or security signatures (use bcrypt or SHA-256/HMAC instead). Hashing runs entirely in your browser.

Built and maintained by Meet Shah · Last updated 30 July 2026

What this tool is used for

Verifying a legacy download whose publisher still only prints an MD5 line.
Deduplicating files inside a trusted set, where nobody is trying to force a collision.
Producing a short non-security fingerprint for a cache key or an ETag.
Reproducing a historical checksum to confirm an archive has not changed since it was recorded.
Understanding an old codebase's identifiers when maintaining it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is MD5 broken?: For security, yes. Practical collisions were demonstrated in 2004, and today a chosen-prefix collision costs minutes on commodity hardware. Never use MD5 for signatures, certificates, deduplication of untrusted input, or password storage.
Is there any legitimate use left?: Yes — non-adversarial integrity checks where an attacker is not in the picture: file transfer checksums against accidental corruption, cache keys, ETags, and matching against legacy MD5 databases you do not control. Its speed is why it lingers.
What is the output size?: 128 bits, shown as 32 hexadecimal characters. That short digest is part of the problem — the birthday bound alone puts a generic collision at 2^64 work, well within reach even before MD5's structural weaknesses are exploited.
Why do two different files show the same MD5?: That is a collision, and for MD5 it can be constructed deliberately. Two files with identical MD5s but different content are trivially producible, which is exactly why MD5 must not be used to prove a file is unmodified.
What should I use instead?: SHA-256 for general integrity and signatures, BLAKE3 if you need MD5-like speed, and bcrypt/scrypt/Argon2 for passwords. Never a raw fast hash for passwords — speed is the attacker's advantage there.
Is a collision the same as being able to reverse a hash?: No, and the distinction decides whether MD5 is usable. Collisions — two crafted inputs sharing a digest — are trivial. Preimage resistance, recovering an input from a digest, is not broken. So MD5 still detects accidental corruption; it cannot resist a deliberate forgery.
Why do download pages still publish MD5 checksums?: Because they are guarding against a truncated download or a bad mirror, not an attacker — and for that a collision is irrelevant. Where the threat is a tampered file, the checksum has to be SHA-256 and served over a channel the attacker does not control.

Common errors and gotchas

Using it where an adversary is involved. Collisions can be constructed cheaply, so a match proves nothing about intent.
Using it on passwords. It is fast by design, which is the property a password hash must not have.
Reading a collision as reversibility. Two inputs sharing a digest does not hand anyone the original input.
Treating a published MD5 as authentication rather than a transport check against accidental corruption.
Assuming its 128-bit length still implies 128 bits of collision resistance. It does not, and has not for many years.