Convenient Windows equivalent to tail -f logfile?

Question

Is there some convenient alternative to this on Windows? I always miss this away from Linux. And no I don't consider Cygwin or some other bash port to be "convenient". :)

Either a small app that'll do it from the command line or will have it open in a window. I need to be able to essentially pause it too, which won't affect the log file, but will allow me to scroll up through the buffer.

Aidan Ryan · Answer 1 · 2012-04-05T16:14:52.493

18

BareTail has a great balance of features and light weight. The highlighting has saved me countless hours.

screenshot

edited Apr 05 '12 at 16:14

answered May 12 '09 at 12:02

Aidan Ryan

1,253
2
13
16

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '09 at 10:23

Options:

unxtools includes a port of tail, including -f.
PowerShell's get-content includes an extra option -wait when using the file system which performs the same function (see help filesystem for this and other cmdlet extensions from the filesystem provider).

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 24 '12 at 11:37

8

Using PowerShell:

Get-Content C:\LogFile.txt -Wait

answered Dec 24 '12 at 11:37

Ivan Zhakov

1,806
14
15

What refresh interval? For a reason I ignore, it lags behind BareTail. – Nicolas Raoul Sep 26 '13 at 06:14

David Webb · Answer 4 · 2009-05-12T09:29:31.163

3

I'd recommend the GnuWin32 port of tail. GnuWin32 is similar to Cygwin in that it's a Windows port of Unix tools but it is completely different in intent.

Instead of trying to turn your Windows system in to a Unix Workstation, each GnuWin32 binary is compiled so it can run as an independent tool. There are separate downloads so you can just download the tools you want. (This makes GnuWin32 preferable to the MinGW ports as well, as the MinGW utilities require all the MinGW libraries to be in place.)

edited May 12 '09 at 09:29

answered May 12 '09 at 09:24

David Webb

411
3
5

I was looking for something like that, since I try to run away from cygwin... – Daniel Mošmondor Jan 08 '12 at 19:22

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 21 '12 at 13:22

2

LogExpert is the one FMPOV: tabs, local file tail, but also accross network using SFTP (SSH) or CIFS (UNC-based), versatile highlighters and more

answered Sep 21 '12 at 13:22

TerDale

189
1
7

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered May 22 '09 at 12:24

Another great Tail utility is Tail for Win32: http://tailforwin32.sourceforge.net/ It is pretty fast and can be used to show you real-time tail on a file which is very convenient when troubleshooting web logs or security logs in production. I also used it to determine what user activity is like at any given time on web servers.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 11 '12 at 10:07

1

I would recommend PowerShell Community extension.
Get-FileTail -f FileName
I think this is the best combination of Unix tail flair on Windows.

answered Jan 11 '12 at 10:07

weismat

343
3
16

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered May 12 '09 at 09:22

1

mTail - http://ophilipp.free.fr/op_tail.htm

It's an alternative to tail -f combined with grep.

answered May 12 '09 at 09:22

vartec

6,137
2
32
49

I'd recommend any of the alternatives over mTail, it's a buggy and unintuitive application that is completely unfinished. – Jordy Boom Feb 09 '12 at 18:58
I'll second that! – tony roth Apr 05 '12 at 16:44

score 1 · Answer 9 · edited Feb 21 '12 at 08:35

1

Take a look at the excellent TraceTool. Amongst many other features, it supports tail with pause/resume.

enter image description here

edited Feb 21 '12 at 08:35

Bart De Vos

17,761
6
62
81

answered May 12 '09 at 11:38

Igal Tabachnik

405
1
5
11

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered May 24 '13 at 08:27

0

SnakeTail is a Windows tail program that can monitor and search log files.

Log Expert is another good alternative.

Here is a good list of other alternatives

answered May 24 '13 at 08:27

Rolf Kristensen

111
2

Convenient Windows equivalent to tail -f logfile?

10 Answers10

Linked