List of file signatures
This is a list of file signatures, data used to identify or verify the content of a file. Such signatures are also known as magic numbers or Magic Bytes.
Many file formats are not intended to be read as text. If such a file is accidentally viewed as a text file, its contents will be unintelligible. However, sometimes the file signature can be recognizable when interpreted as text. The column ISO 8859-1 shows how the file signature appears when interpreted as text in the common ISO 8859-1 encoding, with unprintable characters represented as
.
.Hex signature | ISO 8859-1 | Offset | Filename extension | Description |
23 21 | 0 | Script or data to be passed to the program following the shebang. | ||
a1 b2 c3 d4 d4 c3 b2 a1 | 0 | pcap | Libpcap File Format | |
0a 0d 0d 0a | .... | 0 | pcapng | PCAP Next Generation Dump File Format |
ed ab ee db | 0 | rpm | RedHat Package Manager package | |
53 51 4c 69 74 65 20 66 6f 72 6d 61 74 20 33 00 | SQLite format 3. | 0 | sqlitedb sqlite db | SQLite Database |
53 50 30 31 | SP01 | 0 | bin | Amazon Kindle Update Package |
00 | . | 0 | PIC PIF SEA YTR | IBM Storyboard bitmap file Windows Program Information File Mac Stuffit Self-Extracting Archive IRIS OCR data file |
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 | ........ | 11 | PDB | PalmPilot Database/Document File |
BE BA FE CA | 0 | DBA | Palm Desktop Calendar Archive | |
00 01 42 44 | ..BD | 0 | DBA | Palm Desktop To Do Archive |
00 01 44 54 | ..DT | 0 | TDA | Palm Desktop Calendar Archive |
54 44 46 24 | TDF$ | 0 | TDF$ | Telegram Desktop File |
54 44 45 46 | TDEF | 0 | TDEF | Telegram Desktop Encrypted File |
00 01 00 00 | 0 | Palm Desktop Data File | ||
00 00 01 00 | .... | 0 | ico | Computer icon encoded in ICO file format |
66 74 79 70 33 67 | ftyp3g | 4 | 3gp 3g2 | 3rd Generation Partnership Project 3GPP and 3GPP2 multimedia files |
1F 9D | .. | 0 | z tar.z | compressed file using Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm |
1F A0 | 0 | z tar.z | Compressed file using LZH algorithm | |
42 41 43 4B 4D 49 4B 45 | BACKMIKE | 0 | bac | File or tape containing a backup done with AmiBack on an Amiga. It typically is paired with an index file with the table of contents. |
42 5A 68 | BZh | 0 | bz2 | Compressed file using Bzip2 algorithm |
47 49 46 38 37 61 47 49 46 38 39 61 | GIF87a GIF89a | 0 | gif | Image file encoded in the Graphics Interchange Format |
49 49 2A 00 4D 4D 00 2A | II*. MM.* | 0 | tif tiff | Tagged Image File Format |
49 49 2A 00 10 00 00 00 | II*..... | 0 | cr2 | Canon RAW Format Version 2 Canon's RAW format is based on the TIFF file format |
80 2A 5F D7 | .*_. | 0 | cin | Kodak Cineon image |
52 4E 43 01 52 4E 43 02 | RNC. | 0 | Compressed file using algorithm | |
53 44 50 58 58 50 44 53 | SDPX XPDS | 0 | dpx | SMPTE DPX image |
76 2F 31 01 | v/1. | 0 | exr | OpenEXR image |
42 50 47 FB | BPGû | 0 | bpg | Better Portable Graphics format |
FF D8 FF DB FF D8 FF E0 00 10 4A 46 49 46 00 01 FF D8 FF EE FF D8 FF E1 ?? ?? 45 78 69 66 00 00 | ÿØÿÛ ÿØÿà..JFIF.. ÿØÿî ÿØÿá..Exif.. | 0 | jpg jpeg | JPEG raw or in the JFIF or Exif file format |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 49 4C 42 4D | FORM.... | 0 any | ilbm lbm ibm iff | IFF Interleaved Bitmap Image |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 38 53 56 58 | FORM.... | 0 any | 8svx 8sv svx snd iff | IFF 8-Bit Sampled Voice |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 43 42 4D | FORM.... | 0 any | acbm iff | Amiga Contiguous Bitmap |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 4E 42 4D | FORM.... | 0 any | anbm iff | IFF Animated Bitmap |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? | FORM.... | 0 any | anim iff | IFF CEL Animation |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 46 41 58 58 | FORM.... | 0 any | faxx fax iff | IFF Facsimile Image |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 46 54 58 54 | FORM.... | 0 any | ftxt iff | IFF Formatted Text |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 53 4D 55 53 | FORM.... | 0 any | smus smu mus iff | IFF Simple Musical Score |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 43 4D 55 53 | FORM.... | 0 any | cmus mus iff | IFF Musical Score |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 59 55 56 4E | FORM.... | 0 any | yuvn yuv iff | IFF YUV Image |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 46 41 4E 54 | FORM.... | 0 any | iff | Amiga Fantavision Movie |
46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 49 46 46 | FORM.... | 0 any | aiff aif aifc snd iff | Audio Interchange File Format |
49 4E 44 58 | INDX | 0 | idx | Index file to a file or tape containing a backup done with AmiBack on an Amiga. |
4C 5A 49 50 | LZIP | 0 | lz | lzip compressed file |
4D 5A | MZ | 0 | exe dll | DOS MZ executable file format and its descendants |
50 4B 03 04 50 4B 05 06 50 4B 07 08 | PK.. | 0 | zip aar apk docx epub ipa jar kmz maff odp ods odt pk3 pk4 pptx usdz vsdx xlsx xpi | zip file format and formats based on it, such as EPUB, JAR, ODF, OOXML |
52 61 72 21 1A 07 00 | Rar!... | 0 | rar | RAR archive version 1.50 onwards |
52 61 72 21 1A 07 01 00 | Rar!.... | 0 | rar | RAR archive version 5.0 onwards |
5A 4D | ZM | 0 | exe | DOS ZM executable file format and its descendants |
7F 45 4C 46 | .ELF | 0 | Executable and Linkable Format | |
89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A | .PNG.... | 0 | png | Image encoded in the Portable Network Graphics format |
C9 | È | 0 | com | CP/M 3 and higher with overlays |
CA FE BA BE | Êþº¾ | 0 | class | Java class file, Mach-O Fat Binary |
EF BB BF |  | 0 | UTF-8 encoded Unicode byte order mark, commonly seen in text files. | |
FE ED FA CE | ........ | 0 0x1000 | Mach-O binary | |
FE ED FA CF | ........ | 0 0x1000 | Mach-O binary | |
FE ED FE ED | þíþí | 0 | JKS | |
CE FA ED FE | ........ | 0 | Mach-O binary | |
CF FA ED FE | ........ | 0 | Mach-O binary | |
FF FE | .. | 0 | Byte-order mark for text file encoded in little-endian 16-bit Unicode Transfer Format | |
FF FE 00 00 | .... | 0 | Byte-order mark for text file encoded in little-endian 32-bit Unicode Transfer Format | |
25 21 50 53 | %!PS | 0 | ps | PostScript document |
49 54 53 46 03 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 | ITSF....`... | 0 | chm | MS Windows HtmlHelp Data |
25 50 44 46 2d | %PDF- | 0 | PDF document | |
30 26 B2 75 8E 66 CF 11 | 0&²u.fÏ | 0 | asf wma wmv | Advanced Systems Format |
24 53 44 49 30 30 30 31 | $SDI0001 | 0 | System Deployment Image, a disk image format used by Microsoft | |
4F 67 67 53 | OggS | 0 | ogg oga ogv | Ogg, an open source media container format |
38 42 50 53 | 8BPS | 0 | psd | Photoshop Document file, Adobe Photoshop's native file format |
52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 57 41 56 45 | RIFF.... | 0 | wav | Waveform Audio File Format |
52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 56 49 20 | RIFF.... | 0 | avi | Audio Video Interleave video format |
FF FB FF F3 FF F2 | ÿû ÿó ÿò | 0 | mp3 | MPEG-1 Layer 3 file without an ID3 tag or with an ID3v1 tag |
49 44 33 | ID3 | 0 | mp3 | MP3 file with an ID3v2 container |
42 4D | BM | 0 | bmp dib | BMP file, a bitmap format used mostly in the Windows world |
43 44 30 30 31 | CD001 | 0x8001 0x8801 0x9001 | iso | ISO9660 CD/DVD image file |
53 49 4D 50 4C 45 20 20 3D 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 | SIMPLE | 0 | fits | Flexible Image Transport System |
66 4C 61 43 | fLaC | 0 | flac | Free Lossless Audio Codec |
4D 54 68 64 | MThd | 0 | mid midi | MIDI sound file |
D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1 | 0 | doc xls ppt msg | Compound File Binary Format, a container format used for document by older versions of Microsoft Office. It is however an open format used by other programs as well. | |
64 65 78 0A 30 33 35 00 | dex.035. | 0 | dex | Dalvik Executable |
4B 44 4D | KDM | 0 | vmdk | VMDK files |
43 72 32 34 | Cr24 | 0 | crx | Google Chrome extension or packaged app |
41 47 44 33 | AGD3 | 0 | fh8 | FreeHand 8 document |
05 07 00 00 42 4F 42 4F | ....BOBO | 0 | cwk | AppleWorks 5 document |
06 07 E1 00 42 4F 42 4F | ....BOBO | 0 | cwk | AppleWorks 6 document |
45 52 02 00 00 00 8B 45 52 02 00 00 00 | ER.... ãER.... | 0 | toast | Roxio Toast disc image file, also some.dmg-files begin with same bytes |
78 01 73 0D 62 62 60 | x.s.bb` | 0 | dmg | Apple Disk Image file |
78 61 72 21 | xar! | 0 | xar | eXtensible ARchive format |
50 4D 4F 43 43 4D 4F 43 | PMOCCMOC | 0 | dat | Windows Files And Settings Transfer Repository See also USMT 3.0 and USMT 4.0 User Guides |
4E 45 53 1A | NES | 0 | nes | Nintendo Entertainment System ROM file |
75 73 74 61 72 00 30 30 75 73 74 61 72 20 20 00 | ustar.00 ustar . | 0x101 | tar | tar archive |
4F 41 52 ?? | OAR. | 0 | oar | OAR file archive format, where ?? is the format version. |
74 6F 78 33 | TOX | 0 | tox | Open source portable voxel file |
4D 4C 56 49 | MLVI | 0 | MLV | Magic Lantern Video file |
44 43 4D 01 50 41 33 30 | DCM PA30 | 0 | Windows Update | |
37 7A BC AF 27 1C | 7z¼¯' | 0 | 7z | 7-Zip File Format |
1F 8B | .. | 0 | gz tar.gz | GZIP compressed file |
FD 37 7A 58 5A 00 | ²7zXZ.. | 0 | xz tar.xz | XZ compression utility using LZMA2 compression |
04 22 4D 18 | ."M. | 0 | lz4 | LZ4 Frame Format Remark: LZ4 block format does not offer any magic bytes. |
4D 53 43 46 | MSCF | 0 | cab | Microsoft Cabinet file |
53 5A 44 44 88 F0 27 33 | SZDD.... | 0 | Various. | Microsoft compressed file in Quantum format, used prior to Windows XP. File can be decompressed using Extract.exe or Expand.exe distributed with earlier versions of Windows. |
46 4C 49 46 | FLIF | 0 | flif | Free Lossless Image Format |
1A 45 DF A3 | .Eߣ | 0 | mkv mka mks mk3d webm | Matroska media container, including WebM |
4D 49 4C 20 | MIL | 0 | stg | "SEAN : Session Analysis" Training file. Also used in compatible software "Rpw : Rowperfect for Windows" and "RP3W : ROWPERFECT3 for Windows". |
41 54 26 54 46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 44 4A 56 | AT&TFORM....DJV | 0 | djvu djv | DjVu document The following byte is either 55 for single-page or 4D for multi-page documents. |
30 82 | 0. | 0 | der | DER encoded X.509 certificate |
44 49 43 4D | DICM | 0x80 | dcm | DICOM Medical File Format |
77 4F 46 46 | wOFF | 0 | woff | |
77 4F 46 32 | wOF2 | 0 | woff2 | |
3c 3f 78 6d 6c 20 | 0 | XML | eXtensible Markup Language when using the ASCII character encoding | |
00 61 73 6d | .asm | 0 | wasm | WebAssembly binary format |
cf 84 01 | 0 | lep | Lepton compressed JPEG image | |
43 57 53 46 57 53 | CWS FWS | 0 | swf | flash.swf |
21 3C 61 72 63 68 3E | ! | 0 | deb | linux deb file |
52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 57 45 42 50 | RIFF.... WEBP | 0 | webp | Google WebP image file, where ?? ?? ?? ?? is the file size. More information on |
27 05 19 56 | '..V | 0 | U-Boot / uImage. Das U-Boot Universal Boot Loader. | |
7B 5C 72 74 66 31 |