Seeking a command-line SHA256 bulk hashing tool for Windows

Question

I want to write Windows batch commands that can specify individual files or all files recursively in a folder. Either way, the output should be the full name (including path) of a file and its SHA256 hash value on a single line. For instance, as described elsewhere, I found that the Linux rhash tool could produce results that looked something like this:

6eb6c33775113d2ca571f3f7ad7afccbcd9fbb3938f3e35  /Test/hot plug BIOS settings.wav

By contrast, in that test, HASHSUM.BAT (as an example of a relevant Windows tool) declined to produce any results for about 1% of files in a folder.

My question: is there a Windows tool or command that can produce a list of files (with paths) and their SHA256 hashes, one per line? I want to be able to do this with commands, so as to mass-produce results for a potentially large number of files in different folders, without having to select them one at a time in a GUI.

Update: I'd like the option of using SHA512. I've come to discover that, counterintuitively, its output can be significantly faster on my hardware.

Answer 1

This can be done with standard commands in Powershell. As a test, I went to the directory in which I had the SysInternals Suite unpacked, and executed the following command

Get-ChildItem | Get-FileHash

and the first few lines of output were

Algorithm       Hash                                                                   Path
---------       ----                                                                   ----
SHA256          07C3CA902A948A4A74977A539F297B22739179CFD0599A253F73AEAA2F7D94E7       Z:\SysInternals Suite\accesschk.exe
SHA256          C549F7159BB4087C6ABDC2943166673775ED8364BBC774F3BC3DBDB337C9AD76       Z:\SysInternals Suite\accesschk64.exe
SHA256          A4CC61F6C7ED716E4622E12B75F05EA17E79A45F0D8BD6855C340A30EC882B47       Z:\SysInternals Suite\AccessEnum.exe
SHA256          A89A59BE46F8511E385427C942D352429072B5A83D501CA08463942ABCF8E5A3       Z:\SysInternals Suite\AdExplorer.chm
SHA256          BB45D8FFE245C361C04CCA44D0DF6E6BD7596CABD70070FFE0D9F519E3B620EA       Z:\SysInternals Suite\ADExplorer.exe
SHA256          7F9C32BD71E48C6CD1AECBAEAB7031A4604FC52651272E1446B6773FD6D5B5DA       Z:\SysInternals Suite\ADInsight.chm
SHA256          DEAE099E25B2E77E2E01F9A9D813A2392B70CDE20B5C2E92AE769454150CAABA       Z:\SysInternals Suite\ADInsight.exe
SHA256          D6F2383412056BBFE4C0B2EAD055782008AD4BB5F758C0C582E91C9624F9B5EC       Z:\SysInternals Suite\adrestore.exe
SHA256          324C64D24818A0BE63A43A8DF678B88DCA4F8959841F91F4875CC6ED0E93F549       Z:\SysInternals Suite\Autologon.exe
SHA256          48EAFDBFA0CE0933ED4C3EE18368641292698638AF602291420370CBAA830FC9       Z:\SysInternals Suite\autoruns.chm
SHA256          FE7D78B9CCAF689785740E14E64A6B1B551667F82CAF3CE4FF236E7BA61EDE90       Z:\SysInternals Suite\Autoruns.exe

which appears to be a good match for your request. If you specifically want to exclude reporting the algorithm used, then

Get-ChildItem | Get-FileHash | Select-Object Hash,Path

should do the trick for you. See Microsoft Docs on Get-FileHash for more information.