Open any file - EXE, BIN, DAT, firmware, a broken photo - and see every byte in hex and text, even multi-GB files. Find out what a mystery file really is, inspect values, search, compare two files, check MD5 and SHA-256 and patch bytes. For readable files, the TXT Viewer and the other file viewers show the content itself.
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Paste hex or Base64 bytes instead
Hex pairs, 0x41 lists, Base64 or data: URLs - anything else is read as UTF-8 text.
Latin-1 is Windows-1252, EBCDIC is IBM code page 037 used by mainframes. In UTF-8 and UTF-16 a character sits on its first byte; the dots after it are the rest of that character.
Editing - type hex digits, or type in the text column. Insert switches overwrite / insert, Delete removes the selection, Ctrl + Z undoes.
Offset 0
Search above for hex bytes like FF D8 FF, a word, or a regular expression. Every match is listed here.
Searching...
Select some bytes and bookmark them (Ctrl + B) - each bookmark gets its own colour in the view.
Measuring entropy...
Entropy across the file - click to jump
0-3 repetitive / padding 3-6 text, code, tables near 8 - compressed or encrypted
Byte value histogram - hover for counts
Hashing...
Byte-by-byte, same offsets. You can also drop it here.
Comparing...
Finds PNG, JPEG, ZIP, PDF, GZIP, EXE and 20 more signatures hidden inside this file.
Open any file. Drop a file anywhere on this page, click to browse, paste hex or Base64 bytes, or try a sample. Multi-GB files open instantly because only the bytes on screen are read.
See what it is. The viewer checks the magic bytes against 160+ known file types and names the real format, even when the extension is wrong, with a link to the right viewer.
Inspect and search. Click a byte to decode it as integers, floats, dates and GUIDs in the data inspector. Search for hex bytes, text or a regular expression, jump to any offset and bookmark ranges.
Analyse, edit and save. Check the entropy map, get CRC32, MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256, compare with a second file, patch bytes and download the edited copy or export a selection.
Keyboard shortcuts
Move / selectArrows, Shift + arrows
Page up / downPgUp / PgDn
Start / end of fileCtrl + Home / End
Search, next matchCtrl + F, F3
Go to offsetCtrl + G
Bookmark selectionCtrl + B
Copy selection as hexCtrl + C
Undo / redo an editCtrl + Z / Y
Hex viewer features
Built for huge files
Only the rows on screen are read from disk, so a 4 GB image opens as fast as a 4 KB one.
File type detective
Magic bytes checked for 160+ file types, Office and app packages told apart, and a warning when the extension lies.
Data inspector
Integers from 8 to 64 bits, half, single and double floats, Unix, FILETIME and DOS dates, GUIDs - in either byte order.
Search that scales
Hex with ?? wildcards, text in five encodings or a regex, run in the background over the whole file.
Entropy and histogram
Spot compressed, encrypted and empty regions at a glance, then scan for files hidden inside.
Compare two files
Every changed byte in red with a jump list - ideal for save games, patches and firmware versions.
A real hex editor
Overwrite, insert and delete bytes with full undo, then download the patched copy.
Checksums and export
CRC32, MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256, plus selections as hex, C arrays, Python bytes or Base64.
What file type is this? Read the magic bytes
File extensions can be wrong, missing or changed on purpose.
The bytes at the start of a file are much harder to fake.
Most formats begin with a fixed signature, known as magic bytes or a magic number. Open the file here and the viewer matches it for you - or compare the first bytes with the table yourself.
A file whose first bytes are all 00 usually lost its header - often a sign of a damaged download or a disk error. Text files have no signature at all; if the bytes read as words, try the TXT Viewer.
How to open a hex file on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android
"Hex file" can mean two things.
Most often it means looking at any file as hexadecimal bytes - which this page does on every device.
It can also mean an Intel HEX .hex firmware file, which is plain text. Drop it here to see its raw characters, or open it in the TXT Viewer to read the records line by line.
Windows
Open this page in Edge, Chrome or Firefox and drop the file. Without a browser, PowerShell has a built-in command: Format-Hex .\file.bin prints a hex dump in the console.
Mac and Linux
Safari, Chrome and Firefox all run this viewer. In Terminal, xxd file.bin | less or hexdump -C file.bin | less gives a quick text dump.
iPhone and iPad
Open this page in Safari, tap the drop area and pick the file from Files, iCloud Drive or another app. The 8-byte layout fits the screen without sideways scrolling.
Android
Use Chrome, tap the drop area and choose the file from your downloads or storage. Search, checksums and compare all work on a phone.
Hex editor online: change bytes safely
Press Edit and the view turns into a hex editor.
Type hex digits to overwrite a byte, or switch to Insert to add new ones.
Edits are stored as a list of changes on top of your file, so even a multi-GB file stays fast and nothing is written to disk. Changed bytes are shown in orange, and Undo walks back every step.
Overwrite keeps the size the same - the safe choice for patching values in programs, save games and firmware.
Insert and delete change the size and shift every byte after them, which breaks most formats that store offsets.
Download saves a copy named file-edited.ext. Compare it with the original on the Compare tab before you use it.
Reading values with the data inspector
The same four bytes mean different things depending on how a program reads them.
Click a byte and the inspector decodes the bytes from there as every common type.
Byte order - little endian (Intel, ARM, most file formats) stores the lowest byte first; big endian (network protocols, Java, older Mac formats) stores it last. 01 00 00 00 is 1 in little endian and 16,777,216 in big endian.
Unix time counts seconds since 1 January 1970; FILETIME counts 100-nanosecond steps since 1 January 1601 and is used all over Windows.
GUID - Windows writes the first three groups of a GUID little endian, so the bytes on disk do not read in the same order as the text form.
Common problems with binary files
"Windows cannot open this file"
The extension is missing or unknown. Open the file here: the identification card names the real type and links to a viewer, like the ZIP Viewer for a package that is really a ZIP.
The file is all zeros or ends early
Long runs of 00 where data should be, or a file much smaller than expected, mean the copy was cut off or the disk sectors were lost. Get a fresh copy; editing cannot bring the data back.
Everything looks random
An entropy close to 8 across the whole file means it is compressed or encrypted. Look for an archive signature at the start - or a password-protected container that needs its own app.
The checksum does not match
If the SHA-256 differs from the one on the download page, the file is damaged or was changed. Download it again before you run or install it.
Hex, binary, decimal, ASCII and Base64 compared
These are different ways of writing the same bytes.
Here is the word Hi! in each of them.
Notation
"Hi!" looks like
Characters per byte
Typical use
Hexadecimal
48 69 21
2
Hex editors, memory dumps, colour codes
Binary
01001000 01101001 00100001
8
Bit flags and protocol fields
Decimal
72 105 33
1 to 3
Byte values in code and spreadsheets
ASCII text
Hi!
1
Readable text - only works for printable bytes
Base64
SGkh
about 1.33
Binary data inside emails, JSON and data URLs (PNG to Base64)
Hex wins for binary files because every byte is exactly two characters, so columns line up and offsets are easy to count. Browse all file viewers when you want to see the content itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Drop the file onto this page or click to browse. It opens straight away as offsets, hex bytes and text side by side, on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebooks, iPhone and Android, with nothing to install.
The file is read by your browser and is never uploaded.
Yes. Press Edit, click a byte and type new hex digits, or type in the text column. Insert mode adds bytes instead of overwriting them, Delete removes the selection, and Ctrl + Z undoes any step.
Download saves an edited copy - your original file is never changed.
Open it here. The first bytes of most formats are a fixed signature, called magic bytes - PNG starts with 89 50 4E 47 and ZIP with 50 4B 03 04.
The viewer compares them with more than 160 file types, names the real format even if the extension is wrong or missing, and links to the ConvertICO viewer that opens it.
Yes. The file is never loaded into memory as a whole - only the rows on screen are read, so 4 GB disk images and 10 GB videos open in a moment and scroll smoothly.
Search, checksums and compare stream through the file in the background with a progress bar.
No. Everything happens in your browser, so the viewer is safe for firmware, save games, private documents and malware samples you do not want to share.
Close the tab and nothing is left behind.
Open the first file, go to the Compare tab and pick the second one. Every byte that differs is marked in red, the differences are listed as ranges you can jump through, and the inspector shows the other file's value at the cursor.
Open the file and press Calculate on the Checksums tab. You get CRC32, MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 for the whole file or just the selected bytes.
Paste the hash from a download page into the Verify box to see at once whether it matches.
Entropy measures how random the bytes are, from 0 bits per byte for repeated values to 8 for perfectly random data. Text and code sit around 4 to 6, while compressed or encrypted parts are close to 8.
So the map shows at a glance where images, archives or encrypted blocks hide inside a file.
