This tool hashes your text with SHA-256 and shows the 64-character hexadecimal digest as you type. Switch the dropdown to SHA-384 or SHA-512 for a longer digest, or to SHA-1 when you need to match an older system. The input is encoded as UTF-8 before hashing, so the output matches what you would get from sha256sum, OpenSSL, Python hashlib or any standard library on the same bytes.
The hashing itself uses crypto.subtle.digest, the browser's own audited implementation, so nothing you paste is sent over the network and results stay fast even on very long inputs. You can read the digest as lowercase or uppercase hexadecimal, or as Base64, which is the shorter form used in Subresource Integrity attributes, JSON Web Tokens, S3 checksum headers and many API request signing schemes. Character counts and byte counts are shown alongside.
How to use the SHA-256 Generator
- Paste or type the text you want to hash.
- Pick SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512 or SHA-1 from the algorithm dropdown.
- Choose hexadecimal, Base64 or both, and tick uppercase if the target system needs capitals.
- Press Copy to put the digest on your clipboard.
Frequently asked questions
Is SHA-256 still secure?
Yes. There is no practical collision or preimage attack against SHA-256, and it underpins TLS certificates, Bitcoin and package signing. It is a general-purpose hash, though, not a password hash, because it is designed to be fast.
Should I use SHA-1?
Only for compatibility with something that already exists. SHA-1 collisions were demonstrated publicly in 2017 and chosen-prefix collisions followed, so browsers and certificate authorities dropped it. Never choose SHA-1 for new signatures, integrity checks against a motivated attacker, or anything security relevant.
Can I hash passwords with SHA-256?
No. SHA-256 is fast by design, which means a modern GPU tries billions of guesses per second against a stolen database. Use a slow, salted password hash such as Argon2id, scrypt or bcrypt, which are tuned to make bulk guessing expensive.
What is the difference between hex and Base64 output?
They encode the same digest bytes. Hex uses 16 symbols and produces two characters per byte, so SHA-256 becomes 64 characters. Base64 uses 64 symbols and is about a third shorter, which is why formats such as Subresource Integrity and JWT headers prefer it.