How to monitor a windows log file in real time?

Question

On windows how can I easily monitor a log file and see updates to the file in real time?

Basically, same functionality like tail -f log_file on Unix systems

Platform: Windows XP/2003/2008 server

[Update] this is quite handy for a quick monitoring(thanks to Ckarras's answer)
Quick screen shot of PowerShell type -wait (type is an alias for get-content) alt text

@MikeSchinkel Folks who closed marked it as "they tend to become obsolete quickly." It's a very old question so probably so. — dance2die, Jan 10 '22 at 16:27
@dance2die — It is very frustrating to search for answers to real tech questions that I have only to find the question that could have possibly answered my question was closed by the pendants on the site for some arcane reason. It has me leaving the site with a negative feeling about the sites. And I say this as a former moderator on one of StackExchange sites. #justsaying — MikeSchinkel, Jan 11 '22 at 17:28
@MikeSchinkel This question does have potential should I had kept it up to date. Hopefully folks w/ enough reps can reopen and reply with latest ways — dance2die, Jan 12 '22 at 01:40
How is this question even remotely off-topic?! Monitoring windows log files, sounds a lot like the first two bullet points of "on-topic" items listed here https://serverfault.com/help/on-topic — Rory, Jan 16 '22 at 20:41

score 37 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 10 '09 at 13:50

37

There's also an equivalent to "tail -f" under Windows, if you have PowerShell installed:

type -wait

answered Sep 10 '09 at 13:50

ckarras

471
1
4
3

2

Wow. this is quite awesome. I had no idea about that "-wait" option for "Get-Content". Thanks ckarras. I have also updated question with the screenshot. – dance2die Sep 12 '09 at 17:41
4

Have an upvote for giving an answer that shows you can do this right out of the box if you know how to use OS and that you don't need to install 3rd party tools. – Ryan Ries Nov 09 '12 at 13:51
For those of us unfamiliar with `tail -f`, what does `type -wait` do? – Stevoisiak Jul 02 '18 at 19:09
1

It continuously watches the file for appended data and writes the new content to the console – ckarras Jul 03 '18 at 20:06
wait what is the sample use – Jovylle Dec 01 '21 at 05:28

score 27 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:42

27

I use Notepad++ as my default text editor on all my systems, and it has the nice bonus of having this built-in - just go Plugins -> Document Monitor -> Start to monitor. You can also use File -> Reload from disk to manually reload it.

answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:42

Zack Elan

370
3
5

5

+1 Wow, I have been using Notepad++ for awhile but didn't know about this functionality. thanks. – dance2die Apr 30 '09 at 23:57
1

does this still exist, I don't see it in version 5.9.8 that I just downloaded. – Scott Jan 20 '12 at 17:07
1

@Scott can be downloaded as a plugin http://sourceforge.net/projects/npp-plugins/files/DocMonitor/ – Fishcake May 11 '12 at 10:18
+1 from me too. I love Notepad++ but didn't even think of looking for a plugin. Bye bye BareTail. – Fishcake May 11 '12 at 10:19

score 23 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:05

23

You don't mention which platform you're using, but on Unix-like systems the tail command does this:

tail -f /var/log/messages

In fact there are implementations of tail for Windows also (eg. unxutils).

answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:05

Greg Hewgill

6,749
3
29
26

score 22 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 26 '21 at 08:06

22

Actually, Log-Expert does what you want, plus a lot of nice feature

Features for Log-Exprt

edited Feb 26 '21 at 08:06

montonero

158
6

answered May 01 '09 at 00:10

VonC

2,653
5
29
48

yeah, this solution rocks. Better than notepad++, which only updates every 3 seconds, and is a bit flaky. – Jacko Mar 10 '11 at 19:52
Plus its free :) – Sameer Alibhai Apr 07 '15 at 19:15
@VonC, Any disclaimers? – Pacerier Aug 25 '15 at 10:29
@Pacerier none that I can think of. But that was 6 years ago. – VonC Aug 25 '15 at 10:33
+1 to this answer. LogExpert is by far the best free log monitoring tool. Much better than Baretail (which doesn't even have search in free version). – montonero Feb 26 '21 at 07:30
wow, i didnt knew this exists. ive been kicking my ass on the tail -f command [+1] – kapitan Mar 05 '21 at 08:43

Jorge Alves · Answer 5 · 2009-04-30T23:32:33.550

21

If windows is your thing you could try Tail for Win32.

edit: Another alternative I just found is TailXP. It's free, but not opensource. Looks ok from the description but I haven't tried it.

edited Apr 30 '09 at 23:32

answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:08

Jorge Alves

400
2
7

The advanced features feel a little buggy but for simply tailing the file, it's perfect. – Michael Haren Apr 30 '09 at 23:10
2

Because of "tail" stuff people were mentioning, I found something called "BareTail" - http://www.baremetalsoft.com/baretail/ So far it seems to be doing what I wanted. But I am open for more suggestions. – dance2die Apr 30 '09 at 23:34
That one looks nice to know about too. – Jorge Alves Apr 30 '09 at 23:40

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered May 01 '09 at 01:21

12

I've been using BareTailPro for awhile, and have been very pleased. It hasn't been updated in awhile, but it still meets my needs. There's also a free version.

Here's some of the features:

View files of any size (> 2GB)
Configurable highlighting
Monitor multiple files simultaneously
High-performance search algorithm
Regular expression text search
Filter tail mode (include or exclude lines)

answered May 01 '09 at 01:21

Rob Thomas

236
2
4

1

This is what (BareTail Free version) I settled with for now. Thanks Rob – dance2die Jul 19 '09 at 17:35
This is much slow for big files with long lines and the last update is from 2006 (12 years ago). The best program is pointed on this other answer [Log viewer on Windows](https://superuser.com/a/315381/458103). The program [glogg](http://glogg.bonnefon.org/description.html) despite being simpler than this, handles big files with much better performance, was updated just last year, is open source (https://github.com/nickbnf/glogg) and has support to Windows, Linux and Max OSX. – user Jan 25 '18 at 15:12

score 5 · Answer 7 · answered May 02 '09 at 23:51

5

I have had good luck with the windows program mtail. It does a very nice job of monitoring an active log. You can configure quite a few options but in general I have found the defaults work very well.

mtail

answered May 02 '09 at 23:51

John Dyer

725
1
10
12

Great! I didn't get to run into this one. – dance2die May 03 '09 at 00:23

score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:05

4

Like tail -f file.log?

answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:05

Sophie Alpert

1,639
1
12
16

But doesn't this mean I have to be running the command constantly? – dance2die Apr 30 '09 at 23:20
No, the tail command will wait after printing the last line, and when the file is updated/appended it will print the new line(s) and wait again. Instead of plain tail you might try http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/. – hlovdal Apr 30 '09 at 23:26
He also said for the Windows OS. – Pure.Krome May 01 '09 at 00:02
4

Not when I answered, he hadn't. – Sophie Alpert May 01 '09 at 00:32

score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:05

3

"tail -f logname"?

answered Apr 30 '09 at 23:05

Paul Tomblin

5,217
1
27
39

He edited his post to say it's for Windows OS only. – Pure.Krome May 01 '09 at 00:02
1

There are plenty of versions of tail for Windows, including in cygwin. – Paul Tomblin May 01 '09 at 00:13

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered May 02 '09 at 23:39

3

I love the Kiwi Log Viewer. They were just bought out by Solarwinds -- I assume the product is still for sale (or maybe they're giving it away for free now? They're giving away a few other Kiwi products).

answered May 02 '09 at 23:39

DougN

670
2
7
16

1

Would you post link to Kiwi Log Viewer? I am not sure if this one I found is the one you are referring to: http://www.kiwisyslog.com/kiwi-log-viewer-overview/ – dance2die May 03 '09 at 00:22
Yeah, that's the one -- kiwisyslog.com – DougN May 04 '09 at 15:35

score 2 · Answer 11 · answered May 01 '09 at 00:55

2

If you install Cygwin on your Windows machine, you can run tail

answered May 01 '09 at 00:55

Gary Richardson

1,767
3
19
21

Hmm. Cygwin. I haven't played around with that for years... – dance2die May 03 '09 at 01:49

bruceatk · Answer 12 · 2009-05-01T12:25:10.273

2

I typically do this with TextPad. It has the option to monitor that a file has been modified. It is an option to either automatically update the window or to prompt you whether or not you want to reload the file.

edited May 01 '09 at 12:25

answered May 01 '09 at 01:51

bruceatk

121
1
4

It looks like TextPad has a the same capability as NotePad++'s Document Monitor plugin – dance2die May 03 '09 at 00:26

score 1 · Answer 13 · answered May 08 '09 at 06:25

1

If you're using eclipse there's a fully sick plugin called Log Watcher

http://graysky.sourceforge.net/

It supports multiple files, plus color highlighting.

answered May 08 '09 at 06:25

chickeninabiscuit

1,094
6
17
33

How to monitor a windows log file in real time?

13 Answers13