Check MD5 Hash on your Mac

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 and point it at the file you wish to check the md5 has for.

How to Check MD5 Hash of a File on Mac

First launch the Terminal application, located in the /Applications/Utilities/ directory on the Mac. Next you’ll want to point the md5 command at the file you wish to check md5 hash for. For example, the syntax to check the MD5 hash of a file may look something like this:

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, you found online, or whatever).

An example of what the md5 hash will look is 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. This is very handy when downloading large files, or if you want to make sure a file has not been modified, corrupted, or tampered with.

Checking MD5 Hash with openssl from the command line

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.

This simple md5 command works in Mac OS X and linux too, and it’s a simple way to verify what you are downloading or transferring has arrived intact.