wire / magic / png

PNG signature (89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A)

A PNG file begins with an 8-byte signature: 0x89 then the ASCII 'PNG', then a CRLF, a DOS EOF (0x1A), and a final LF. The non-ASCII first byte and the CR/LF/EOF bytes are deliberately chosen to detect transmission over text-mode channels that would corrupt the file.

magic kind signature status standard verification verified tier B file-signature@1

aka: PNG magic · \x89PNG

file signature

magic: 89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A @ offset 0

ascii: \x89 P N G \r \n \x1a \n

.png image/png

spec: RFC 2083 / ISO/IEC 15948

The first byte 0x89 has the high bit set so the file is flagged as binary, not text.
Bytes 2-4 are the ASCII letters 'PNG' (0x50 0x4E 0x47).
The CR LF (0D 0A), DOS EOF (1A), and final LF (0A) catch line-ending translation and premature EOF during faulty text-mode transfers.
Immediately after the 8-byte signature comes the first chunk, normally IHDR.

provenance

source: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2083#section-3.1
version: RFC 2083 (PNG 1.0), Section 3.1 PNG file signature
retrieved: 2026-05-29 · updated: 2026-05-29T00:00:00Z

PNG signature (89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A)

file signature

provenance

see also