List of Common Hex Headers

To identify the file format or signatures, one typically only needs to look for the first few bytes of the file in question. This is what’s often called magic bytes, which help in identifying the type of file. It can be helpful to look for file format signatures.

Image File

File Type	Extension	HEX Digit	ASCII Digit
Bitnamp	.bmp	42 4D	BM
FITS	.fits	53 49 4D 50 4C 45	SIMPLE
GIF	.gif	47 49 46 38	GIF8
Graphics Kernel System	.gks	47 4B 53 4D	GKSM
IRIS RGB	.rgb	01 DA	Not Applicable
ITC (CMU WM)	.itc	F1 00 40 BB	Not Applicable
JPEG File Interchange	.jpg	FF D8 FF E0	Not Applicable
NIFF (Navy TIFF)	.nif	49 49 4E 31	IIN1
PM	.pm	56 49 45 57	VIEW
PNG	.png	89 50 4E 47	.PNG
Postscript	.[e]ps	25 21	%!
Sun Raster file	.ras	59 A6 6A 95	Y.j.
TIFF format (big endian)	.tif	4D 4D 00 2A	MM.*
TIFF format ( little endian)	.tif	49 49 2A 00	II.*
XCF Gimp file structure	.xcf	67 69 6D 70 20 78 63 66 20 76	gimp xcf
XFIG	.fig	23 46 49 47	#FIG
XPM format	.xpm	2F 2A 20 58 50 4D 20 2A 2F	/* XPM */

Compressed File

File Type	Extension	HEX Digit	ASCII Digit
BZIP	.bz	42 5A	BZ
Compress	.Z	1F 9D	Not Applicable
GZIP	.gz	1F 8B	Not Applicable
PKZIP	.zip	50 4B 03 04	PK..
RAR	.rar	52 61 72 21 1A 07 01 00	Rar!...

Archive Files

File Type	Extension	HEX Digit	ASCII Digit
TAR (pre-POSIX)	.tar	-	(Filename)
TAR (POSIX)	.tar	75 73 74 61 72	ustar (offset by 257 bytes)

Executable Files

File Type	Extension	HEX Digit	ASCII Digit
MS-DOS, OS/2 or MS Windows	-	4d 5a	MZ
UNIX ELF	-	7F 45 4C 46	.ELF

Miscellaneous Files

File Type	Extension	HEX Digit	ASCII Digit
PGP Public Ring	-	99 00	-
PGP Security Ring	-	95 00	-
PGP Security Ring	-	95 01	-
PGP Encrypted Data	-	A6 00	-

You might also be interested in,

• Magic Bytes and Important File Formats - Click Here!
• How magic bytes can be used to go undetected - Click Here!

We hope this helps. If any suggestions or doubts you can add a comment and we will reply as soon as possible.