Check MD5 Hash on your Mac
October 13th, 2009 - How to, Tips & Tricks
You can easily check the MD5 Hash of any file on your Mac, all you need to do is launch the Terminal and type the ‘md5′ command:
md5 big_huge_file.iso
You’ll be returned with an MD5 Checksum Hash that you can check against the source MD5 code provided to you (or that a friend shares, or whatever). It will look something like this:
MD5(big_huge_file.iso)= 20665acd5f59a8e22275c78e1490dcc7
The part after the = sign is the MD5 hash code that you can compare against the source to be sure that the file has retained it’s integrity through transmission. Very handy when downloading large files!
Alternatively you can use the openssl command to check MD5 checksums on your Mac, like so:
openssl md5 big_huge_file.iso
The data returned to you will be the same whether you use the openssl command or the md5 command, it’s really just a matter of preference.
Posted by: Bill Ellis

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