Generate file checksums

The Windows programs sha1sum.exe, sha256sum.exe, md5sum.exe and crc32sum.exe are free command-line programs that generate or verify SHA-1, SHA-256, MD5 and CRC-32 checksums for a file or list of files.

For example, to compute the SHA-1 checksum (i.e. digest value) of the file abc.txt:

>sha1sum abc.txt
a9993e364706816aba3e25717850c26c9cd0d89d *abc.txt

Note that the default mode is binary. Use the -t option for text mode. For help, use the -h option and see the README file (markdown version) included with the download.

2025-11-02: Updated version 1.1 including 64-bit executables and BSD-2-Clause license.

2017-03-11: If you want the result in base64 encoding — for example to include as a <DigestValue> in an XML-DSIG document — use our digestvalue.exe instead.

Syntax

Usage:
  sha1sum [-b|-t] [FILES...]
  sha1sum [-v] -c [FILE]
  sha1sum [-hVL]
Generates or checks SHA-1 Message Digests
  -c  check message digests (default is generate)
  -v  verbose, print file names when checking
  -b  read files in binary mode (default)
  -t  read files in text mode
  -h  display this help and exit
  -V  display version information and exit
  -L  display license and exit
The input for -c should be the list of message digests and file names
that is printed on stdout by this program when it generates digests.

More examples

>md5sum *.txt
25f9e794323b453885f5181f1b624d0b *123-9.txt
900150983cd24fb0d6963f7d28e17f72 *abc.txt
5eb63bbbe01eeed093cb22bb8f5acdc3 *hello.txt
a0f2a3c1dcd5b1cac71bf0c03f2ff1bd *hellon.txt

>md5sum hellon.txt
a0f2a3c1dcd5b1cac71bf0c03f2ff1bd *hellon.txt

>md5sum -t hellon.txt
6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4  hellon.txt

>crc32sum *.txt
cbf43926 *123-9.txt
352441c2 *abc.txt
0d4a1185 *hello.txt
38e6c41a *hellon.txt

>sha1sum *.txt
f7c3bc1d808e04732adf679965ccc34ca7ae3441 *123-9.txt
a9993e364706816aba3e25717850c26c9cd0d89d *abc.txt
2aae6c35c94fcfb415dbe95f408b9ce91ee846ed *hello.txt
88a5b867c3d110207786e66523cd1e4a484da697 *hellon.txt

>sha256sum *.txt
15e2b0d3c33891ebb0f1ef609ec419420c20e320ce94c65fbc8c3312448eb225 *123-9.txt
ba7816bf8f01cfea414140de5dae2223b00361a396177a9cb410ff61f20015ad *abc.txt
b94d27b9934d3e08a52e52d7da7dabfac484efe37a5380ee9088f7ace2efcde9 *hello.txt
572a95fee9c0f320030789e4883707affe12482fbb1ea04b3ea8267c87a890fb *hellon.txt

>sha256sum *.txt > output.sha256

>sha256sum -cv output.sha256
123-9.txt      OK
abc.txt        OK
hello.txt      OK
hellon.txt     OK

Test files

Four test files are included in the distribution.

abc.txt

The ASCII string of 3 characters abc

>hexdump -C abc.txt
000000  61 62 63                                 abc

123-9.txt

The ASCII string of 9 characters 123456789

>hexdump -C 123-9.txt
000000  31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39               123456789

hello.txt

The ASCII string of 11 characters hello world

>hexdump -C hello.txt
000000  68 65 6c 6c 6f 20 77 6f 72 6c 64         hello world

hellon.txt

The ASCII string hello world followed by CR-LF.

>hexdump -C hellon.txt
000000  68 65 6c 6c 6f 20 77 6f 72 6c 64 0d 0a   hello world..

Text mode

The text mode -t reads Windows-style CR-LF pairs (\r\n) as a single LF byte (\n). This means a text file on a Unix system (which uses LF as a line ending) should generate the same digest value as the same text file on a Windows system (which uses CR-LF as a line ending).

Downloads

1. Binaries: digsum-1.1.0.zip (196 kB) . All programs recompiled and digitally signed 2025-11-02.
2. The 32-bit executables should work on almost all modern Windows system, but there are separate executables included compiled for a 64-bit platform, should you need it.
3. These executables are issued under a BSD-2-Clause license.

Install

To install, just copy the EXE files to a folder on your Windows PATH, for example C:\Windows. You may need administrator permissions to copy the file. We recommend you set up a C:\Bin directory for files like this.

Contact us

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This page last updated 2 November 2025.