5 MB Markdown sample

A Markdown file of exactly 5,242,880 bytes. It is a valid Markdown file, generated by this site. Compare its checksum and test it with the parser used by your application. Use it wherever you need a 5 MB sample, test or dummy Markdown file.

sample-md-5mb.md

5 MB5,242,880 bytes

Download 5 MB Markdown

Created in your browser in a few seconds, then checked against the SHA-256 checksum. The file is not uploaded anywhere. No sign-up.

Type: text/markdown
SHA-256: 99aa331e4f60cde48937ce4d10e5e2a6ff5feda1021b0550346d003fedc3a469
Delivery: Created in your browser from static generator assets (how it works).

What is in this file

13,399 sections with headings, paragraphs, bulleted and numbered lists, block quotes, fenced code blocks and tables. An HTML comment at the end brings the file to the exact size.

Sections	13,399
Flavour	CommonMark, with GitHub-style tables
Elements	Headings, emphasis, lists, links, quotes, code blocks, tables
Encoding	UTF-8 (ASCII characters only)
Line endings	LF

How the file begins

The opening lines of sample-md-5mb.md, exactly as they appear in the file.

00000000  23 20 53 61 6d 70 6c 65  20 4d 61 72 6b 64 6f 77 |# Sample Markdow|
00000010  6e 20 66 69 6c 65 20 28  35 20 4d 42 29 0a 0a 41 |n file (5 MB)..A|
00000020  20 43 6f 6d 6d 6f 6e 4d  61 72 6b 20 64 6f 63 75 | CommonMark docu|
00000030  6d 65 6e 74 20 66 6f 72  20 74 65 73 74 69 6e 67 |ment for testing|

Preview

Creates the file in your browser and shows the first 64 KB of it.

Where 5 MB matters

A 5,242,880-byte file: the size of a phone photo and the minimum part size for S3 multipart uploads. These are the default limits a file of this size is useful for testing:

System	Limit	Note
PHP	2 MB per uploaded file by default (upload_max_filesize)	A 5 MB upload fails on an untuned PHP installation.
Vercel Functions	4.5 MB request body	Larger uploads must go directly to object storage.
Amazon S3 multipart upload	5 MiB minimum part size	This file is exactly one minimum part.
AWS Lambda	6 MB synchronous invocation payload	5 MB of binary data exceeds it once base64-encoded.
Browser localStorage	About 5 MB per origin	Storing this file as text fills the quota.
Django	2.5 MB in memory by default	Larger uploads are streamed to a temporary file instead of held in memory.

All 5 MB sample files

Use this file for

Finding the first upload limit in a new stack
Testing documentation pipelines
Testing Markdown renderers and editors

Testing notes for Markdown

Markdown may contain raw HTML, so anything that renders user-supplied Markdown needs an HTML sanitiser.
Tables are an extension rather than part of CommonMark, so renderers differ on whether they appear.

Markdown format reference

Technical details

File name	sample-md-5mb.md
Format	Markdown (Markdown)
Extension	.md
MIME type	text/markdown
Size	5,242,880 bytes (5 MB)
Kind	Text
SHA-256	99aa331e4f60cde48937ce4d10e5e2a6ff5feda1021b0550346d003fedc3a469
Created	2026-10-23
Validation	See the listed size and SHA-256. Small downloads are checked in the browser; verify streamed downloads manually. A hash match does not prove parser compatibility.
Preview	Available on this page
Source	Generated in your browser by this site's generator; not copied from elsewhere
Licence	Free to use, modify and redistribute (terms)
Category	Documents

Check the stated structure and checksum against your application requirements. As with any download, scan the file with your own security tools before opening it. How files are made and checked

Verify your copy

This file is created in your browser, so it has no direct URL for curl or wget. The generator is designed to produce reproducible bytes. After saving, compare the checksum with the SHA-256 value above.

sha256sum sample-md-5mb.md     # Linux
shasum -a 256 sample-md-5mb.md # macOS

On Windows, run Get-FileHash sample-md-5mb.md -Algorithm SHA256 in PowerShell. For scripts and pipelines, save the file once and keep your own copy.

Related files

Questions about this file

Is this file exactly 5 MB?: Yes. It is 5,242,880 bytes, which is 5 MB in the binary units that operating systems and server limits use (1 KB = 1,024 bytes).
What is inside the 5 MB Markdown file?: 13,399 sections with headings, paragraphs, bulleted and numbered lists, block quotes, fenced code blocks and tables. An HTML comment at the end brings the file to the exact size.
Which Markdown features do the samples use?: Headings, emphasis, ordered and unordered lists, links, a pipe table, a fenced code block and a block quote.

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