You’re trying to troubleshoot some PC issue, the answer could be in a log file, so you open it using Notepad… And often wait, and wait, and wait, because the program takes so very long to parse larger files.

As an example, we pointed Notepad at a relatively small 46MB log file, and even this took 23 seconds to appear.

Using a smarter editor will help. We found Notepad++ opened the file in 8 seconds, a big improvement, although still slow enough to leave you with a lengthy wait for larger files.

LogViewer is an open-source tool which is built to handle massive log files, and it’s seriously fast, opening our test file in around half a second – around 40 to 50 times faster than Notepad.

The program can also run plain text or regular expression searches, instantly highlighting the results (no more endless “Find Next” here).

Plain text and regular expression search tools help locate the data you need

Right-clicking displays options to filter the results (display searches matches, or everything but search matches), export text and more.

The interface for these extra features is awkward, with key options and details buried away in right-click menus. But this is a very early release, the core functionality works fine, and if you just need to view massive text files at top speed then LogViewer could already save you a lot of time. Take a look.

LogViewer is an open-source application for Windows 7 and later.