List of file signatures

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

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.

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.

File extension	Description	Offset	ISO 8859-1	Hex signature
rpm	RedHat Package Manager (RPM) package	0	....	ed ab ee db
bin	Amazon Kindle Update Package	0	SP01	53 50 30 31
PIC PIF SEA YTR	IBM Storyboard bitmap file Windows Program Information File Mac Stuffit Self-Extracting Archive IRIS OCR data file	0	.	00
PDB	PalmPilot Database/Document File	11	........ ........ ........	00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
DBA	Palm Desktop Calendar Archive	0	...	BE BA FE CA
DBA	Palm Desktop To Do Archive	0	..BD	00 01 42 44
TDA	Palm Desktop Calendar Archive	0	..DT	00 01 44 54
	Palm Desktop Data File (Access format)	0	...	00 01 00 00
ico	Computer icon encoded in ICO file format	0	....	00 00 01 00
3gp 3g2	3rd Generation Partnership Project 3GPP and 3GPP2 multimedia files	4	ftyp 3g	66 74 79 70 33 67
z tar.z	compressed file (often tar zip) using Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm	0	..	1F 9D
z tar.z	Compressed file (often tar zip) using LZH algorithm	0	..	1F A0
bac	File or tape containing a backup done with AmiBack on an Amiga. It typically is paired with an index file (idx) with the table of contents.	0	BACKMIKE DISK	42 41 43 4B 4D 49 4B 45 44 49 53 4B
bz2	Compressed file using Bzip2 algorithm	0	BZh	42 5A 68
gif	Image file encoded in the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)	0	GIF87a GIF89a	47 49 46 38 37 61 47 49 46 38 39 61
tif tiff	Tagged Image File Format	0	II*. MM.*	49 49 2A 00 (little endian format) 4D 4D 00 2A (big endian format)
cr2	Canon RAW Format Version 2 Canon's RAW format is based on the TIFF file format	0	II*..... CR	49 49 2A 00 10 00 00 00 43 52
cin	Kodak Cineon image	0	.*_.	80 2A 5F D7
	Compressed file using Rob Northen Compression (version 1 and 2) algorithm	0	RNC.	52 4E 43 01 52 4E 43 02
dpx	SMPTE DPX image	0	SDPX XPDS	53 44 50 58 (big endian format) 58 50 44 53 (little endian format)
exr	OpenEXR image	0	v/1.	76 2F 31 01
bpg	Better Portable Graphics format	0	BPGû	42 50 47 FB
jpg jpeg	JPEG raw or in the JFIF or Exif file format	0	ÿØÿÛ ÿØÿà ..J F IF.. ÿØÿá ..E x if..	FF D8 FF DB FF D8 FF E0 ?? ?? 4A 46 49 46 00 01 FF D8 FF E1 ?? ?? 45 78 69 66 00 00
ilbm lbm ibm iff	IFF Interleaved Bitmap Image	0 any	FORM.... ILBM	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 49 4C 42 4D
8svx 8sv svx snd iff	IFF 8-Bit Sampled Voice	0 any	FORM.... 8SVX	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 38 53 56 58
acbm iff	Amiga Contiguous Bitmap	0 any	FORM.... ACBM	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 43 42 4D
anbm iff	IFF Animated Bitmap	0 any	FORM.... ANBM	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 4E 42 4D
anim iff	IFF CEL Animation	0 any	FORM.... ANIM	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 4E 49 4D
faxx fax iff	IFF Facsimile Image	0 any	FORM.... FAXX	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 46 41 58 58
ftxt iff	IFF Formatted Text	0 any	FORM.... FTXT	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 46 54 58 54
smus smu mus iff	IFF Simple Musical Score	0 any	FORM.... SMUS	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 53 4D 55 53
cmus mus iff	IFF Musical Score	0 any	FORM.... CMUS	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 43 4D 55 53
yuvn yuv iff	IFF YUV Image	0 any	FORM.... YUVN	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 59 55 56 4E
iff	Amiga Fantavision Movie	0 any	FORM.... FANT	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 46 41 4E 54
aiff aif aifc snd iff	Audio Interchange File Format	0 any	FORM.... AIFF	46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 49 46 46
idx	Index file to a file or tape containing a backup done with AmiBack on an Amiga.	0	INDX	49 4E 44 58
lz	lzip compressed file	0	LZIP	4C 5A 49 50
exe	DOS MZ executable file format and its descendants (including NE and PE)	0	MZ	4D 5A
zip jar odt ods odp docx xlsx pptx vsdx apk aar	zip file format and formats based on it, such as JAR, ODF, OOXML	0	PK..	50 4B 03 04 50 4B 05 06 (empty archive) 50 4B 07 08 (spanned archive)
rar	RAR archive version 1.50 onwards	0	Rar!...	52 61 72 21 1A 07 00
rar	RAR archive version 5.0 onwards	0	Rar!....	52 61 72 21 1A 07 01 00
	Executable and Linkable Format	0	.ELF	7F 45 4C 46
png	Image encoded in the Portable Network Graphics format	0	.PNG....	89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A
class	Java class file, Mach-O Fat Binary	0	Êþº¾	CA FE BA BE
	UTF-8 encoded Unicode byte order mark, commonly seen in text files.	0		EF BB BF
	Mach-O binary (32-bit)	0 0x1000	........	FE ED FA CE
	Mach-O binary (64-bit)	0 0x1000	........	FE ED FA CF
	Mach-O binary (reverse byte ordering scheme, 32-bit)	0	........	CE FA ED FE
	Mach-O binary (reverse byte ordering scheme, 64-bit)	0	........	CF FA ED FE
	Byte-order mark for text file encoded in little-endian 16-bit Unicode Transfer Format	0	..	FF FE
	Byte-order mark for text file encoded in little-endian 32-bit Unicode Transfer Format	0	....	FF FE 00 00
ps	PostScript document	0	%!PS	25 21 50 53
pdf	PDF document	0	%PDF	25 50 44 46
asf wma wmv	Advanced Systems Format	0	0&²u.fÏ .¦Ù.ª.bÎl	30 26 B2 75 8E 66 CF 11 A6 D9 00 AA 00 62 CE 6C
	System Deployment Image, a disk image format used by Microsoft	0	$SDI0001	24 53 44 49 30 30 30 31
ogg oga ogv	Ogg, an open source media container format	0	OggS	4F 67 67 53
psd	Photoshop Document file, Adobe Photoshop's native file format	0	8BPS	38 42 50 53
wav	Waveform Audio File Format	0	RIFF.... WAVE	52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 57 41 56 45
avi	Audio Video Interleave video format	0	RIFF.... AVI.	52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 56 49 20
mp3	MPEG-1 Layer 3 file without an ID3 tag or with an ID3v1 tag (which's appended at the end of the file)	0	ÿû	FF FB
mp3	MP3 file with an ID3v2 container	0	ID3	49 44 33
bmp dib	BMP file, a bitmap format used mostly in the Windows world	0	BM	42 4D
iso	ISO9660 CD/DVD image file	0x8001 0x8801 0x9001	CD001	43 44 30 30 31
fits	Flexible Image Transport System (FITS)	0	SIMPLE = T	53 49 4D 50 4C 45 20 20 3D 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 54
flac	Free Lossless Audio Codec	0	fLaC	66 4C 61 43
mid midi	MIDI sound file	0	MThd	4D 54 68 64
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.	0		D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1
dex	Dalvik Executable	0	dex.035.	64 65 78 0A 30 33 35 00
vmdk	VMDK files	0	KDM	4B 44 4D
crx	Google Chrome extension or packaged app	0	Cr24	43 72 32 34
fh8	FreeHand 8 document	0	AGD3	41 47 44 33
cwk	AppleWorks 5 document	0	....BOBO ........ ....	05 07 00 00 42 4F 42 4F 05 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01
cwk	AppleWorks 6 document	0	....BOBO ........ ....	06 07 E1 00 42 4F 42 4F 06 07 E1 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01
toast	Roxio Toast disc image file, also some .dmg-files begin with same bytes	0	ER.... ãER....	45 52 02 00 00 00 8B 45 52 02 00 00 00
dmg	Apple Disk Image file	0	x.s.bb`	78 01 73 0D 62 62 60
xar	eXtensible ARchive format	0	xar!	78 61 72 21
dat	Windows Files And Settings Transfer Repository See also USMT 3.0 (Win XP) and USMT 4.0 (Win 7) User Guides	0	PMOCCMOC	50 4D 4F 43 43 4D 4F 43
nes	Nintendo Entertainment System ROM file	0	NES	4E 45 53 1A
tar	tar archive	0x101	ustar.00 ustar .	75 73 74 61 72 00 30 30 75 73 74 61 72 20 20 00
tox	Open source portable voxel file	0	TOX	74 6F 78 33
MLV	Magic Lantern Video file	0	MLVI	4D 4C 56 49
	Windows Update Binary Delta Compression	0	DCM PA30	44 43 4D 01 50 41 33 30
7z	7-Zip File Format	0	7z¼¯'	37 7A BC AF 27 1C
gz tar.gz	GZIP	0	..	1F 8B
lz4	LZ4 Frame Format Remark: LZ4 block format does not offer any magic bytes.	0	."M.	04 22 4D 18
cab	Microsoft Cabinet file	0	MSCF	4D 53 43 46
Various. (Replacing the last character of the original file extension with an underscore, e.g. setup.exe becomes setup.ex_)	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.	0	SZDD....	53 5A 44 44 88 F0 27 33
flif	Free Lossless Image Format	0	FLIF	46 4C 49 46
mkv mka mks mk3d webm	Matroska media container, including WebM	0	.Eߣ	1A 45 DF A3
stg	"SEAN : Session Analysis" Training file. Also used in compatible software "Rpw : Rowperfect for Windows" and "RP3W : ROWPERFECT3 for Windows".	0	MIL	4D 49 4C 20
djvu djv	DjVu document The following byte is either 55 (U) for single-page or 4D (M) for multi-page documents.	0	AT&TFORM....DJV	41 54 26 54 46 4F 52 4D ?? ?? ?? ?? 44 4A 56
der	DER encoded X.509 certificate	0	0.	30 82
dcm	DICOM Medical File Format	0x80	DICM	44 49 43 4D
woff	WOFF File Format 1.0	0	wOFF	77 4F 46 46
woff2	WOFF File Format 2.0	0	wOF2	77 4F 46 32
XML	eXtensible Markup Language when using the ASCII character encoding	0	<?xml	3c 3f 78 6d 6c 20
wasm	WebAssembly binary format	0	\0asm	6d 73 61 00
lep	Lepton compressed JPEG image	0		cf 84 01
swf	flash .swf	0	.CWS EWS	43 57 53 46 57 53
deb	linux deb file	0	!<arch>.	21 3C 61 72 63 68 3E
webp	Google WebP image file	0	RIFF.... WEBP	52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 57 45 42 50
	U-Boot / uImage. Das U-Boot Universal Boot Loader.	0	'..V	27 05 19 56
rtf	Rich Text Format	0	{\rtf1	7B 5C 72 74 66 31
	Microsoft Tape Format	0	TAPE	54 41 50 45
ts tsv tsa	MPEG Transport Stream (MPEG-2 Part 1)	0 0xBC 0x178 ... (every 188th byte)	G	47
m2p vob	MPEG Program Stream (MPEG-1 Part 1 (essentially identical) and MPEG-2 Part 1)	0	....	00 00 01 BA
mpg mpeg	MPEG Program Stream MPEG Transport Stream MPEG-1 video and MPEG-2 video (MPEG-1 Part 2 and MPEG-2 Part 2)	0	.... G ....	00 00 01 BA 47 00 00 01 B3
zlib	No Compression/low Default Compression Best Compression	0	....	78 01 78 9C 78 DA
dat	Minecraft Level Data File	1	‹�	1F 8B 08 00
lzfse	LZFSE - Lempel-Ziv style data compression algorithm using Finite State Entropy coding. (bvx2) https://github.com/lzfse/lzfse	0	-	62 76 78 32
orc	Apache ORC (Optimized Row Columnar) file format	0	ORC	4F 52 43
avro	Apache Avro binary file format	0	Obj.	4F 62 6A 01
rc	RCFile columnar file format	0	SEQ6	53 45 51 36
	Apache Parquet columnar file format	0	PAR1	50 41 52 31

See also

• List of file formats
• Magic number (programming)

External links

• Gary Kessler's list of file signatures
• Online File Signature Database for Forensic Practitioners, a private compilation free to Law Enforcement
• Man page for compress, uncompress, and zcat on SCO Open Server
• Public Database of File Signatures
• Complete list of magic numbers with sample files