VSFileHash Portable

Files can be compared in many ways to determine whether or not they're identical. If you're interested in cleaning up your hard drive, for example, you have to consider identifying and removing duplicate files, which just take up space unnecessarily.

Some users turn to file duplicate finders capable of comparing files by name, size or date of last modification to discover if they're merely copies of each other. However, advanced methods go beyond this, detecting the exact file structure with the help of hashes. These are long, unique strings of characters that make up the file's fingerprint. It cannot be reproduced, which means that two files with the same fingerprint are a match.

To cut to the chase, VSFileHash Portable is a Windows tool able to find the signatures (also known as hashes) of files. It supports a wide range of checksums, such as SHA224, SHA512, Tiger192, and MD5.

Since it's wrapped in a portable package, the tool can be saved to a USB flash drive and launched on any PC without setup, as well as stored in your collection of portable software to be deployed whenever it's needed.

Packed in a clean and intuitive interface, the program asks you to drop any file, select the preferred security algorithm from a drop-down menu, and calculate its hash with one click. It also shows the hex and Base64 code, which can be easily copied to the clipboard.

Keyboard shortcuts are supported for starting and stopping the hash calculation, opening the containing folder, or adding a new file for computation. The app gets integrated with the Explorer context menu to allow you to effortlessly calculate a file's hash via the right-click menu.

Unsurprisingly, VSFileHash Portable worked as expected in our tests. We've encountered no compatibility issues with Windows 10, and it performed calculations instantly. Thanks to its clear-cut interface and options, it can be easily used. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an option implemented for comparing two files by hash.