MD5 encrypt online

Generate the MD5 hash of a text

This tool computes the MD5 hash of the text you enter. The result is always a string of 32 hexadecimal characters (digits 0 to 9 and letters a to f), however long the input is.

People often search for "MD5 encryption", but MD5 is a hash function, not a cipher. It works one way only: there is no key, and a hash cannot be "decrypted" to get the original text back.

How to use it

1. Type or paste your text into the input box.
2. Click Encrypt.
3. The MD5 hash appears in the green box, in lowercase.
4. Click Copy to put it on your clipboard.

The hash is computed on our server from the UTF-8 encoded text. An empty box returns an error.

Examples and things to watch

The smallest change in the text gives a completely different hash. A single capital letter is enough:

If your result does not match the one you expected, check three things: a trailing space or line break, upper and lower case, and the character encoding. Accented text does not hash the same in UTF-8 and in ISO-8859-1. On the Linux command line, use echo -n; without -n, a newline is added to the text and the hash changes.

MD5 is still handy for checking that a file or a text was not damaged in transit, spotting duplicates or building a cache key. It should no longer be used to sign documents: it is possible to craft two different contents with the same hash, known as a collision.

Frequently asked questions

Can an MD5 hash be decrypted?

No. Hashing discards information and cannot be reversed. Sites that claim to "decrypt" MD5 look the hash up in tables computed in advance for common words. They will find hello, not a long sentence nobody has hashed before.

Is MD5 suitable for storing passwords?

No. MD5 is very fast, which lets an attacker try billions of candidate passwords. Password storage calls for deliberately slow algorithms such as bcrypt or Argon2. This tool does not offer them.

Can two different texts have the same hash?

Yes, that is a collision. It will not happen by accident in everyday use, but collisions can be produced on purpose. This is why MD5 is no longer accepted for signatures and certificates.

Why is the hash always 32 characters long?

MD5 outputs 128 bits. Written in hexadecimal, at 4 bits per character, that makes 32 characters, for a single word as for a whole book.