A few folk asked me if there’s an app to check MD5 and SHA-256 hashes on downloaded files. Although not as common now as it used to be, some sites that provide downloads give either or both of those so you can check a file after you’ve downloaded it. I’m delighted to offer a free and convenient solution, which can also do more than that: my new app DropSum.

DropSum, now available for macOS 11 Big Sur and later, including Tahoe, handles this using drag and drop, and works in two modes.

When you’ve downloaded a file for which the site provides either MD5 or SHA-256 hash/checksum, copy that and paste it into the appropriate box in DropSum’s window. Then drag and drop the downloaded file onto the window, and DropSum will tell you whether that file’s hash/checksum matches, using ✅ or ❌ to make that clear.

If you clear those text boxes using its Clear button, then drag and drop a file onto its window, DropSum will compute its MD5 and SHA-256 hashes/checksums and display them. You can copy and paste those into your own website, or compare them manually if you wish.

DropSum will handle very large files, although it’s primarily intended to work best with MB rather than GB. If you do set it a large task, it may take a few seconds, and in the worst case may spin a busy cursor for a brief time. However, it features a clear indicator of when it’s busy: when you’re about to drop the file onto its window, its colour changes to green, and only changes back again once DropSum has finished checking.

If you want to check SHA-256 hashes on a few files that aren’t suitable for use with Dintch or Fintch, then you can use DropSum instead, and paste those hashes into a text document to keep alongside those files. The advantage here is that you can move those files and the record of their hashes to any file system or host, including those that don’t support the extended attributes required by Dintch and Fintch.

DropSum version 1.0 is now available from here: dropsum10
and from its new Product Page. Updated with version 1.1.

For the record, here are its hashes, as computed by DropSum:

• MD5 21fadab0eba02c96b8ad2f06c7295021
• SHA256 97c2d1bfd8122f364b54cc301a5e9ef4c5578312eca4ce14c810743846aeb2f6

(Also updated for 1.1)

Enjoy!