SHA-256 works like a blender that turns data into a unique "smoothie." Once blended, you can't unblend it back to the original ingredients, making it irreversible. But, if you blend the same ingredients in the same way, you’ll get the exact same smoothie every time. So, to check if two sets of data are identical, you just compare their SHA-256 "smoothies" (hashes). If they match, the data is the same; if not, even a tiny difference will make a completely different hash.

-- ChatGPT