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Updated

How to Check the SHA-256 Checksum of a File on Mac

With Supercharge

  1. Open the settings of Supercharge, click “Tweaks”, and click “Configure…” next to “Context menu items”.
  2. In the “Main Menu” tab, turn on “Copy Checksum”.
  3. Right-click the file in Finder, and choose “Copy Checksum › SHA-256”.
  4. Paste the checksum next to the one on the download page, or in the search field of the page with CommandF, to see that they are the same.

The submenu also has SHA-512, MD5, CRC32, SHA-1, and SHA-384. It only shows for files, not for folders.

The right-click items cannot show in synced folders, like iCloud Drive and Dropbox. There, right-click the file, and choose “Services › Copy SHA-256 Checksum”.

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Platform
macOS
Requires
macOS 26.4 or later
Released
September 2024
Privacy
No personal data collected
Updated
September 2026
Version
1.30.1
Size
16 MB
Gumroad rating
5.0/5 (284 ratings)

More about Supercharge

Without an app

macOS has the commands in Terminal. Replace the path with your file, or drag the file into the window:

console
shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/file.dmg

The result is the checksum, then the path. For other algorithms:

console
shasum -a 512 ~/Downloads/file.dmg
md5 ~/Downloads/file.dmg

If the checksums are not the same, the file changed or did not download completely. Download it again. The Terminal way is fine for a file now and then. Supercharge is faster when you check files often.

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