SHA-512 hash generator
Hash text or files with SHA-512 — free, local, in your browser. Nothing you enter here leaves your machine.
the hash appears here — type above or drop a file
What SHA-512 is
SHA-512 is the largest standard member of the SHA-2 family (FIPS 180-4): a 512-bit digest written as 128 hexadecimal characters. Internally it's SHA-256's big sibling — same design, but built on 64-bit words with 1024-bit blocks, which is why a 128-character hash exists at all: more internal state, more output, more security margin.
When to pick it
Honestly: when something asks for it. Certificate chains signed with RSA-SHA512, JWT's HS512, checksums a vendor happened to publish at 128 characters — matching the other side is the common reason. Choosing freely for your own integrity checks, SHA-256 is the ecosystem default and every tool speaks it; the full trade-off lives in SHA-256 vs SHA-512. If you want SHA-512's engine with a shorter, length-extension-proof output, that's SHA-384.
The speed question, honestly
On a 64-bit CPU without SHA acceleration, SHA-512 usually beats SHA-256 on throughput — each round chews through twice the bytes. But most current processors ship hardware SHA-256 instructions, which reverses the ranking, and for file checksums your SSD is often the real bottleneck. Translation: pick by compatibility, not benchmarks. (If raw speed is genuinely the goal, BLAKE3 wins outright.)
Verifying a download published as SHA-512
Drop the file above and paste the 128-character value into the compare field — or use the verify tool, which spots SHA-512 by length automatically. On the command line it's sha512sum on Linux, shasum -a 512 on macOS, and certutil -hashfile file SHA512 on Windows; the guides walk through each.
questions
Is SHA-512 more secure than SHA-256?
It has a larger security margin — a 512-bit output and 1024-bit blocks — but both are unbroken, and SHA-256 is already far beyond any feasible attack. Pick SHA-512 when a spec demands it or you want headroom; see SHA-256 vs SHA-512.
Why is SHA-512 sometimes faster than SHA-256?
SHA-512 works on 64-bit words, so on a 64-bit CPU it processes about twice as much data per round. On machines with dedicated SHA-256 instructions (most modern laptops and phones), hardware acceleration flips the result. For big files here, the difference is rarely what you'll notice — disk speed is.
How long is a SHA-512 hash?
128 hexadecimal characters, representing 64 bytes (512 bits). If a site publishes a 128-character hex string next to a download, it's almost certainly SHA-512 — the hash identifier can confirm.
What are SHA-512/256 and SHA-384?
Truncated variants: they run the SHA-512 engine with different initial values and cut the output short. The truncation makes them immune to length-extension quirks of plain SHA-512. SHA-384 is common in TLS.