Sample BMP Files — Download Test Bitmap Images
Windows Bitmap · .bmp · MIME type image/bmp
Download a sample BMP file — 24-bit uncompressed Windows bitmaps at 640×480 and 1280×720. BMP is the simplest raster format still in circulation: a small header followed by raw pixel rows, which makes it the go-to fixture for writing or testing an image decoder from scratch.
It is also the format legacy Windows software (Paint, older scanners, industrial systems) produces by default, so upload handlers still see it. Files are large because there is no compression; the size is exactly width × height × 3 bytes plus header and row padding.
Download sample BMP files
| File | Details | Size | Download |
|---|---|---|---|
sample-image-640x480.bmp | 640 × 480 | 922 KB | |
sample-image-1280x720.bmp | 1280 × 720 | 2.8 MB |
Need one of every images format? Download the images sample pack (1.3 MB, one small file of every images format (10 files)).
Use these files from the command line or CI
Every URL is stable and CORS-open. Pin the SHA-256 in your test and you will know the moment a fixture changes.
# Download one file curl -O https://pnb-website-bucket.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/samples/images/bmp/sample-image-640x480.bmp # Verify it (SHA-256 is listed for every file above) shasum -a 256 sample-image-640x480.bmp # Machine-readable index of every sample file curl https://pnb-website-bucket.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/samples/index.json | jq '.files[] | select(.format=="bmp")'
BMP format at a glance
| Full name | Windows Bitmap |
|---|---|
| Extensions | .bmp |
| MIME type | image/bmp |
| Introduced | Microsoft/IBM, Windows 2.0 (1987) |
| Compression | None (RLE variants exist but are rare) |
| Colour | 1, 4, 8, 16, 24 or 32-bit |
| Transparency | Only in 32-bit variants, poorly supported |
| Magic bytes | 42 4D ("BM") |
What people test with sample BMP files
- Writing or testing a raster decoder (rows are stored bottom-up — a classic bug)
- Legacy Windows and industrial-system uploads
- Predictable-size files for validation rules
Frequently asked questions
Should I use BMP for anything on the web?
No. Browsers display it, but a BMP is 10–50× larger than the same image as PNG or JPG. Treat BMP as an input format to accept and convert, never as an output format.
Are these BMP files safe to download?
Yes. Every file is generated by our own open script from scratch — nothing is scraped or user-uploaded — and contains no scripts, macros or executables. The SHA-256 of each file is published on this page so you can verify what you received.
Can I use the sample BMP files commercially?
Yes. They are free for any purpose, including commercial products, test suites, demos and redistribution, with no attribution required. There is nothing to license and no one to ask.
Can I hotlink these files or use them in CI?
Yes. Every link is a stable direct URL over HTTPS with Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * and long cache headers, so curl, wget, fetch() and test runners can pull them directly. A JSON index of every file is linked from each page (see the command-line section).
Related sample files
Free tools that work with BMP
- Image Converter — Convert images between PNG, JPG, and WebP right in your browser. Files never leave your device.
Testing a file pipeline? We build them.
Uploads, conversions, previews, document processing and media workflows are the kind of production systems Pine & Birch designs and runs for clients — which is why we needed these files in the first place.
See how we can help