File Signature

File signatures, also known as magic numbers, play a critical role in file identification and analysis. These unique sequences of bytes are located at the beginning of a file and are typically represented as hexadecimal values. By using file signatures, programs can determine the format and structure of a file, which is essential for proper handling. Having a solid understanding of file signatures can be helpful in various scenarios, such as data recovery efforts, malware analysis, and general file management. With this knowledge, you can work more efficiently and effectively with your digital files.

Hex Signature	File Extension	ASCII Signature File Description
47 49 46 38 37 61	.gif	GIF87a image file
47 49 46 38 39 61	.gif	GIF89a image file
FF D8 FF E1 xx xx 45 78 69 66 00	.jpg, .jpeg	Exif image file
FF D8 FF E2 xx xx	.jpg, .jpeg	Canon RAW (CR2) image file
89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A	.png	Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image file
49 49 2A 00	.tif, .tiff	Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) image file
42 4D	.bmp	Bitmap (BMP) image file
25 50 44 46	.pdf	Portable Document Format (PDF) file
25 21 50 53 2D 41 64 6F 62 65	.ps	PostScript (PS) file
7B 5C 72 74 66 31	.rtf	Rich Text Format (RTF) file
46 4C 56 01	.flv	Flash video file
46 4F 52 4D 00	.aif, .aiff	Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) file
49 44 33	.mp3	MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) file
4D 54 68 64	.mid, .midi	MIDI sound file
52 49 46 46 xx xx xx xx 57 41 56 45 66 6D 74 20	.wav	Waveform Audio File Format (WAV) file
52 49 46 46 xx xx xx xx 41 56 49 20	.avi	Audio Video Interleave (AVI) video file
30 26 B2 75 8E 66 CF 11 A6 D9 00 AA 00 62 CE 6C	.wmv	Windows Media Video (WMV) file
1A 45 DF A3	.mkv	Matroska video file
25 52 41 52 0A 25 50 44 46	.rar	RAR archive file
50 4B 03 04	.zip	ZIP archive file
50 4B 4C 49 54 45	.zip	PKLITE compressed ZIP archive file
7F 45 4C 46	.elf	Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) file
4D 5A	.exe, .dll	Windows Executable/DLL file
43 57 53	.swf	Shockwave Flash (SWF) file
46 4C 56 01	.flv	Flash video file
3C 3F 78 6D 6C 20	.xml	XML file
5F 27 A8 89	.db	SQLite database file
7B 5C 72 74 66 31	.rtf	Rich Text Format (RTF) file
3C 3F 78 6D 6C 20	.xml	XML file
21 3C 61 72 63 68 3E	.deb	Debian package file
1F 8B 08	.gz	Gzip compressed file
37 7A BC AF 27 1C	.7z	7-Zip compressed file
FD 37 7A 58 5A 00	.xz	XZ compressed file
78 01	.zlib, .deflate	zlib compressed file
04 22 4D 18	.lz4	LZ4 compressed file
53 51 4C 69 74 65 20 66 6F 72 6D 61 74 20 33 2E	.sqlite3	SQLite3 database file
37 E4 53 96 C9 DB D6 3C	.sqlite	SQLite database file
21 3C 61 72 63 68 3E	.rpm	RPM package file
4D 5A	.exe, .dll	Windows Executable/DLL file
4D 5A	.scr	Windows screen saver file
4D 5A	.cpl	Windows Control Panel item file
4D 5A	.ocx	Windows ActiveX control file
4D 5A	.sys	Windows system driver file
00 01 00 00 00	.ttf, .otf	TrueType/OpenType font file
3C 3F 78 6D 6C 20	.svg	Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file
47 49 42 38 34 61	.gbr	GIMP brush file
42 50 47 FB	.bpg	Better Portable Graphics (BPG) image file
25 21 50 6F 73 74 53 63 72 69 70 74 20 45 50 53	.eps	Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file
37 7A BC AF 27 1C	.7z	7-Zip compressed file
30 31 4F 52 44 4E 41 4E 44	.ord, .orf	Olympus RAW (ORF) image file
4D 4D 00 2A	.tiff, .tif	BigTIFF image file
4D 4D 00 2B	.tiff, .tif	BigTIFF image file
4D 4D 00 2A	.dng	Digital Negative (DNG) image file
46 4F 52 4D 00	.aif, .aiff	Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) file
52 49 46 46 xx xx xx xx 57 41 56 45	.wav	Waveform Audio File Format (WAV) file
49 44 33	.mp3	MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) file
FF F1	.mpg, .mpeg	MPEG-1 video file
89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A	.png	Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file
FF D8 FF E0 xx xx 4A 46 49 46 00	.jpg, .jpeg	JPEG/JFIF image file
42 4D	.bmp	Bitmap (BMP) image file
49 49 2A 00	.tif, .tiff	Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file
52 49 46 46 xx xx xx xx 57 41 56 45	.avi	Audio Video Interleave (AVI) video file
52 49 46 46 xx xx xx xx 41 56 49 20	.avi	Audio Video Interleave (AVI) video file
46 4C 56 01	.flv	Flash video file
00 01 BA 21	.mpg, .mpeg	MPEG-2 video file
30 26 B2 75 8E 66 CF 11 A6 D9 00 AA 00 62 CE 6C	.asf, .wmv	Advanced Systems Format (ASF)/Windows Media Video (WMV) file
4D 5A 50 00 02 00 00 00 04 00 0F 00 FF	.pdf	Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file
52 61 72 21 1A 07 00	.rar	RAR compressed archive file
1F 8B 08	.gz	Gzip compressed file
1F 9D	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using compress)
1F A0	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using compress)
1F A3	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using compress)
1F B5	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using compress)
1F 8B 08	.tar.gz, .tgz	Gzip compressed Tar archive file
1F 9D 90	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using gzip)
1F A0 xx	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using compress)
1F A3 xx	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using compress)
1F B5 xx	.tar.Z	Compressed Tarball (compressed using compress)
50 4B 03 04	.zip	Zip archive file
50 4B 05 06	.zip	Zip archive file
50 4B 07 08	.zip	Zip archive file
7B 5C 72 74 66 31	.rtf	Rich Text Format (RTF) file
64 65 78 0A 30 33	.dex	Dalvik Executable (DEX) file
4D 5A	.exe, .dll	Windows/DOS executable file
47 4E 55 50	.gnu	GNU Info Reader file
FD FF FF	.jar	Java Archive (JAR) file
CA FE BA BE	.class	Java bytecode class file
AC ED 00 05 73 72 00	.ser	Java Serialized Object file
52 61 64 69 75 73 20 53 65 65 64 66 69 6C 65	.dat	WinNT Registry / Windows 2000 Registry Hive
00 01 42 44	.vmdk	Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) file
23 20 64 65 62 69 61 6E 2D 62 61 73 68	.deb	Debian software package file
5F 27 A8 89	.rpm	RPM package file
3C 3F 78 6D 6C 20	.xml	Extensible Markup Language (XML) file
3C 21 44 4F 43 54 59 50 45	.docx, .xlsx, .pptx	Office Open XML (OOXML) file
50 4B 03 04 14 00 06 00 08 00	.docx, .xlsx, .pptx	Office Open XML (OOXML) file
D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1	.doc, .xls, .ppt	Microsoft Office file
00 01 00 00 00	.ico	Icon file
1F 8B 08 00	.tar	Tar archive file
4C 01	.lnk	Windows Shortcut file
4D 56	.mbox	Email mailbox file
1B 4C 75 61	.lua	Lua programming language source code file
4D 5A 90 00 03 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 FF	.ocx, .dll	Windows system file
47 49 46 38 37 61	.gif	Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) image file
FF D8 FF E0 00 10 4A 46 49 46	.jpg, .jpeg	JPEG/JFIF image file
89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A	.png	Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image file
49 49 2A 00	.tif, .tiff	Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) image file
42 4D	.bmp	Bitmap (BMP) image file
25 21 50 53 2D	.ps	PostScript (PS) file
47 42 52 20	.cbr	Comic Book Archive (CBA, CBZ, CBR, CB7, CBT) file
50 4B 03 04 0A 00 00 00 00 00 9D 5B	.jar	JAR archive file
50 4B 03 04 0A 00 00 00 00 00 20 AF	.jar	JAR archive file
50 4B 03 04 14 00 02 00 08 00	.odt, .ods, .odp	OpenDocument Format (ODF) file
50 4B 03 04 0A 00 00 00 00 00 3C 3A	.odt, .ods, .odp	OpenDocument Format (ODF) file
50 4B 03 04 14 00 06 00 08 00	.docx, .xlsx, .pptx	Office Open XML (OOXML) file
FF FE	.txt	Unicode text file
EF BB BF	.txt	UTF-8 encoded text file